I consider John McCain’s military service heroic. I consider his undermining of our country politically to be 100% unrelated to his military heroism.
Anyone serving in a hellish POW camp who doesn’t turn into Jane Fonda to get out of it deserves my respect. It was hell. I didn’t do much of a search for it but this is part of it - he could have been released early from the camp because his dad was an admiral but he declined.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0608/McCain_talks_of_his_decision_to_not_be_released_from_POW_camp.html
I recalled reading about him in a few books. One was “The Climate of Hell” and the other one was “When Hell Was In Session.”
His current conduct dishonors him. HIs military service was honorable.
> “I consider John McCain’s military service heroic.”
I’ve done extensive research on McCain and I see no way for any reasonably informed person to arrive at your view.
McCain was the same in character before his service, during his service, and after his service. His character frankly stinks.
He was the son and grandson of Navy Admirals. He had to go in the service or risk being ostracized by his high ranking family members.
When he was in flight training, he flunked multiple times and was kicked out. Only after his father pulled rank was he reinstated.
When he served, he served a total of 19 hours in combat before he was shot down and he was shot down for flying too low against instructions because he was incompetent.
When he was captured, he let it be known or it was found out that his father was high-ranking. After that was discovered, he was treated better than all the others. The only time he was mistreated was when he refused to ‘confess’ and be released.
The reason McCain refused early release is because Admiral Stockdale was the Commanding Officer of the POWs inside the Hanoi Hilton and he ordered every POW to refuse unless they all were to be released together. McCain knew if he disobeyed orders he would stain his family’s honor forever. So he was no hero in this, he was commanded to do what he did. Following orders is not an act of heroism.
After he was released, his faithful loving wife who had waited patiently in desperation for his safe return was dumped by him because the stress of worrying if would have ever return safely caused her to put on weight, not a lot, but enough for him to dump her in favor of a much younger cuter rich girl whose daddy was linked to the mob in Arizona.
His new girlfriend’s father set him up to take Goldwater’s senate seat when Goldwater retired. McCain had to learn how to talk like a conservative to be elected.
Arizonans do not love him but they are a red state and they have no one else to vote for. When there are primaries McCain has enormous amounts of dirty money line up behind him with mob thugs lining up democrat crossovers to bury his GOP opponents. Then he gets reelected because Arizonans have nowhere else to go.
This man is a scumbag of the first order.
How anyone can buy the lie he was ever a hero is either ignorant or suffers from impaired reasoning. In any case, it is an insult to the many American soldiers who rotted and died in the jungles of Vietnam and who never received even one-tenth of the fake citations that this scumbag received.
And his citations and medals? Every one of them a lie and fabrication. They are not written in accordance with the DOD manuals for citations. They describe no heroic actions in detail. There is nothing he did that merits a hero citation. He’s a walking lie. The reason he received so many citations and commendations was because he was an ‘Admiral’s Boy’ and his father wanted him to be like Kennedy and be a war hero. It was all manufactured. His father wanted him to be in high office and be President. So he dumped his loyal first wife for a new one that could have him ushered in to take Goldwater’s seat.
He’s 80 years old. He won’t be around much longer. And when he’s gone, the public will learn the truth about this scumbag.