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Leo Keith Thorsness (born February 14, 1932) is a retired colonel in the United States Air Force who received the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Vietnam War. He was awarded the medal for an air engagement on April 19, 1967. He was shot down two weeks later and spent six years in captivity in North Vietnam as a prisoner of war. After his military service, Thorsness served one term in the Washington State Senate. ==Early career== Thorsness was born in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, where he earned the Eagle Scout award from the Boy Scouts of America. He is one of only nine known Eagle Scouts who also received the Medal of Honor. The others are Aquilla J. Dyess and Mitchell Paige of the U.S. Marine Corps, Robert Edward Femoyer and Jay Zeamer, Jr. of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Arlo L. Olson, Benjamin L. Salomon of the United States Army, and Eugene B. Fluckey and Thomas R. Norris of the United States Navy. In 2010, Thorsness received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He attended South Dakota State College in 1950, where he met his future wife, Gaylee Anderson, also a freshman. They married in 1953 and had a daughter, Dawn. Thorsness enlisted in the Air Force in 1951 at the age of 19 because his brother was then serving in Korea. In 1954 he received his commission as an officer and his wings with a rating of pilot through the USAF Aviation Cadet program in Class 54-G. He later earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Omaha in 1964,〔http://unoalumni.org/unomag-Fall13/boysintheservice#.VEWLnfnF8no〕 and a Masters in Defense Systems Management from the University of Southern California. His initial assignment was as a pilot in the Strategic Air Command, but he completed training as a fighter pilot and flew both F-84 and F-100 jets before transitioning to the F-105 Thunderchief.〔 In the autumn of 1966, after completing F-105 "Wild Weasel" training at George AFB, California, he was assigned to the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing based at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand, flying as aircraft commander in F-105F's, tasked with locating and destroying North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Leo K. Thorsness」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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