Tomorrow is Veterans Day. But today is the birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps.

My old friend Orson Swindle — who served in the Hanoi Hilton with John McCain during the Vietnam War and then went on to an illustrious political career, including top strategist for Ross Perot’s 1992 presidential campaign — tells an amazing story about his life as a Marine captain after getting shot down in Vietnam.

I found the story recounted here at Defenselink, and I’ve excerpted my favorite part:

The period in captivity wasn’t without humor, and the men celebrated their small victories where they could find them. Swindle takes particular pleasure in telling the story of how he convinced the North Vietnamese captors Nov. 10 is National Doughnut Day in the United States.

He said one interrogator liked to practice his English by bragging about his country’s 4,000-year history. Once during an October spent there, this individual was bragging about an upcoming Vietnamese holiday and taunted Swindle by telling him the United States is such a young country it couldn’t have any meaningful holidays.

Swindle convinced him a major American holiday was right around the corner, National Doughnut Day, on Nov. 10. He described doughnuts as similar to something the men got served on rare occasions in the prison camp. Periodically the Vietnamese would take old, dirty bread and fry it and sprinkle it with a little sugar. The men took to calling the concoctions “sticky buns.”

As soon as that interrogation session was over, Swindle “got on the wall” and tapped out what he had done so the others would respond in kind. Sure enough, on Nov. 10 that year, the North Vietnamese brought around these sticky buns in celebration of National Doughnut Day. Swindle had gotten their North Vietnamese jailers to unwittingly celebrate the Marine Corps birthday.

And the greatest twist to Swindle’s story? He was shot down 40 years ago tomorrow: Nov. 11, 1966.

Semper Fi, Orson — and all veterans.