Special Veteran’s Day program

Wisconsin born Don Heiliger received an Air Force ROTC commission through the University of Wisconsin in 1958 where he earned a degree in accounting. He served as a navigator-instructor and later earned his pilot wings at Webb AFT Texas, Class 65-F, graduating first in his class. Flying the Republic F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber out of Korat AB, Thailand, he was shot down on his 43rd mission over North Vietnam on 15 May 1967 and spent nearly six years there as a Prisoner-of-War.

Repatriated in 1973, Don earned a Masters Degree from George Washington University. He was three times Air Force Attache--first to Uruguay and then to Chile and, lastly, as both Defense and Air Attache, the senior military representative to the State of Israel. Don retired as a Colonel in August 1985 and worked as a vice president of an international marketing firm in Washington, D.C.

Don and his wife, Cheryl, moved back to Wisconsin in 1987 to raise their three sons, Don, Jr. (32) and twins Dan and Dave (27). Between 1992 and 2004, Don was elected to six two-year terms on the Dane County Board during which he chaired the Public Protection and Judiciary Committee for four years.

From 1993 to 2000 Don served as the elected Clerk of the Town of Dunkirk and again later served as appointed Clerk of the Township. Don was on the Madison Area Technical College Board of Trustees for ten years and in 1999 was appointed by Governor Tommy Thompson to serve on the State Board for Veterans Affairs, serving as chairman in 2002.

Don is past-president of Stoughton Rotary and now serves on the Board of Trustees of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.