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POWs Heed Captor's Last Order. 'Step Forward...Go Home' HANOI- The North Vietnamese officer called out each group of American Prisoners arriving at Gia Lam Airport for their flight to freedom: "Step forward when your name is called and go home." One by one they obeyed, 107 U.S. fliers and one American civilian. They saluted or shook hands with American officers in Hanoi to pick them up and then walked into one of the three U.S. Air Force C141 transport planes that carried them to Clark Air Base in the Phillippines for the first stop on their way home. Only one...

The years in a brutal prison were equivalent to earning a Ph.D. in psychology. We saw that peace without freedom is empty. We gained a deep appreciation for justice and courage. We learned that survival depends on teamwork. We were colorblind — whites, blacks, Asians, we were all the same. We learned the value of always doing what is right regardless of consequence, as John did by refusing early release though he knew he would be tortured for it. A president who has been tested in this way can be counted on to make wise decisions.

A former Naval Academy midshipman who was imprisoned alongside John McCain is the narrator of a new television ad that bashes the Republican candidate by saying being a prisoner of war is not a good prerequisite for being president The ad, produced by Brave New PAC, a liberal political action committee affiliated with Brave New Films, shows Phillip Butler saying McCain was known as a “very volatile guy” and someone Butler would not like to see “with his finger near the red button.” Leighton Woodhouse, communications director for both Brave New Films and the PAC, said two days of national...

John McCain has won an unusual endorsement for his presidential campaign - from the man who was his jailer in wartime Vietnam. John McCain was shot down and badly wounded while bombing a Hanoi power station on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam in 1967. He was a prisoner for over five years. Because Mr McCain's father was commander of all American forces in the Pacific theatre, the Vietnamese called him "the prince". Tran Trong Duyet, the commandant of Hao Lo prison in Hanoi from 1968-73, recalls Mr McCain "as a typical child of a traditional military family. He was...

Sunday, September 14, 2008 DFA's shameless ad Have you seen this Democracy for America ad yet?  Can you imagine. . . betrayed by a fellow POW.  Shameless.   McCain: Unfit to Lead

The Obama campaign is mocking John McCain for not using a computer. From the AP story about the computer illiterate ad: "Our economy wouldn't survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats," [Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail." Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the...

In its zeal to get tough on Sen. John McCain, who has taken the lead in the presidential race, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign released a television ad today, titled "Still," making fun of Sen. McCain for being old fashioned. In the ad, the Obama campaign says that McCain hasn't changed much since he went to Congress in 1982, to make the case that McCain's campaign does not represent change. But the campaign crossed a line when it ridiculed McCain because he "can't send an e-mail," and unwittingly embroiled itself in another controversy that will throw the campaign off message. The...

TEMPE, Ariz. - Facing a threat that his homosexuality would be exposed by Christian conservatives at a city council meeting, Mayor Neil Giuliano did what he thought was nobody's business: He held a press conference and declared, ''I happen to be gay.'' The reaction of Arizona's senior senator, John McCain, was swift and angry. ''John was the first to tell the religious right, 'This doesn't make a damned bit of difference,''' Giuliano said, remembering how McCain went out of his way to call him a good mayor and a great friend. ''Politically in Arizona, McCain should have done just the...

Wondering No More [Jonah Goldberg] Yep. The day after 9/11, as part of its "get tough" makeover, the Obama campaign is mocking John McCain for not using a computer, without caring why he doesn't use a computer. From the AP story about the computer illiterate ad: "Our economy wouldn't survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats," [Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail." Well, I guess it depends on what you...

Rare footage discovered in the archives of Swedish public TV channel SVT

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Sept. 13) - Swedish broadcaster SVT on Thursday released a previously unseen film clip purportedly showing the release of presidential candidate John McCain to the U.S. military in Hanoi in 1973. A former SVT reporter, Erik Eriksson, said he found the video in the network's archives when he was looking for footage for a book he was writing about his experiences as a war correspondent in Vietnam. SVT posted the edited 39-second clip on its Web site on Thursday. It shows McCain stepping off a bus with other prisoners. He has a pronounced limp but is not using...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Swedish broadcaster SVT on Thursday released a previously unseen film clip purportedly showing the release of presidential candidate John McCain to the U.S. military in Hanoi in 1973. A former SVT reporter, Erik Eriksson, said he found the video in the network's archives when he was looking for footage for a book he was writing about his experiences as a war correspondent in Vietnam.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - A previously unseen film clip purportedly showing the release of Vietnam POW John McCain to the U.S. military in Hanoi in 1973 has been released in Sweden. A former reporter for Swedish broadcaster SVT says he found the video in the network's archives. SVT posted the edited 39-second clip on its Web site today. It shows McCain stepping off a bus with other prisoners. He has a pronounced limp but isn't using crutches. It then shows McCain standing in a lineup when his name is called. He walks up to salute and shake hands with U.S....

Of course he (McCain) became very friendly with the Vietnamese. They called him the Prince. He was well treated actually.

Maybe having been a POW does qualify you to be president. At least if you emerge from the experience in the way it appears John McCain did. McCain’s acceptance speech on Thursday may not been oratory for the ages – although it wasn’t bad and it had its stirring moments to be sure – but to listen to it, you got the impression that so much of what McCain has done in his political career suddenly made sense. And you got the sense that for all the people we’ve sent to Washington hoping they would really change the place, this...

Maybe having been a POW does qualify you to be president. At least if you emerge from the experience in the way it appears John McCain did. McCain’s acceptance speech on Thursday may not been oratory for the ages – although it wasn’t bad and it had its stirring moments to be sure – but to listen to it, you got the impression that so much of what McCain has done in his political career suddenly made sense. And you got the sense that for all the people we’ve sent to Washington hoping they would really change the place, this...

Staunch Allies, Tested by Adversity McCain Relies on a Cadre of Fellow POWs to Help Get Message Across By John Wagner and Anita Kumar Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, September 3, 2008; Page A24 ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 2 -- When the roll call reaches Maryland on Wednesday night, a convention delegate with a special bond with John McCain is scheduled to step forward to announce the state's 37 votes. Everett Alvarez Jr. of Potomac was a prisoner of war with McCain in the same camp in North Vietnam, where they came to know each other during their final year...

Former president Jimmy Carter said Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s prisoner-of-war experience in Vietnam gives him an unfair advantage over his rival, Senator Obama. “Senator McCain had the good fortune of being called to fight for his country,” Carter complained. “Getting captured and tortured by the Communists was an opportunity denied to Senator Obama. He was only six years old, living in Indonesia at the time. By the time Barack would’ve been old enough, there were no similar opportunities for him.” Carter rued the fact that voters weren’t apt to appreciate the hardships Obama had to endure when he was...

Former President Jimmy Carter said Thursday that John McCain is “milking every possible drop of advantage” from his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, USA Today reported Thursday. Carter focused on McCain’s interview earlier this month with author and pastor Rick Warren at his parish, the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. McCain used every question, whether it was about religion, domestic or foreign affairs, to talk about his five-and-a-half years as a POW, Carter claimed

presented to you by the South Carolina GOP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtzb0Krz-9Q

John McCain's Imprisonment in Vietnam: A True Tale of Heroism James Ray Have you ever heard the whole account of John McCain's imprisonment during the Vietnam War? Until recently, I was only aware of the general story; I didn't know the details. But I recently read a couple of pieces on McCain's capture, imprisonment and torture by the North Vietnamese, and it blew me away. Not since Ernest Shackleton's cursed journey to the South Pole have I heard a tale of such courage, mental toughness and physical endurance. The Young John McCain The Crash and Capture In October of 1967,...

USA Today --- Link only http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-28-carter-denver_N.htm

Democrats have decided in their infinite wisdom that John McCain should not speak of his 5 1/2 years in captivity as a POW. It's as if they believe they have a right to decide when a man can talk about his own life. But it is his life -- and it is not their right to decide. Now some of John McCain's fellow POWS are speaking out on his behalf. Here is a video report about one of the men who went through the nightmare of captivity alongside John McCain - literally. Col. Orson Swindle shared a cell with McCain...

After Republican presidential hopeful John McCain couldn't specify the number of homes he owns, Democratic opponent Barack Obama slammed him for not having "a very clear sense of what ordinary Americans are goin' through."

After a brief conversation with Col. Bud Day, I can confirm that Col. Day is most likely the toughest man alive in addition to being the most decorated Air Force veteran in history. Some of the details Day shared with the McCain Report are too gory to reproduce here, but he did confirm that "not long after we all got back together [in the camp]," McCain told him the story of the prison guard who drew a cross in the dirt one Christmas. "We were bringing each other up to date, he was telling me how he [McCain] had been...

There's been a ton of buzz on the web for the last day or so -- beginning with this Daily Kos diary -- suggesting that John McCain patterned his story about a Vietamese captor drawing a cross in the dirt before him on a similar episode from Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn's time in the Soviet gulags. But it turns out that this episode probably never happened to Solzhenitsyn at all, and according to a Solzhenitsyn biographer it appears nowhere in his published writing. Columbia University professor Michael Scammell, the author of Solzhenitsyn: A Biography, says the episode "never happened," and...

I called Orson Swindle, a fellow POW who is campaigning for McCain, to ask him about it. “I recall John telling that story when we first got together in 1971, when were talking about every conceivable thing that had ever happened to us when we were in prison” Swindle told me a few minutes ago. “Most of us had been kept apart or in small groups. Then, in 1970, they moved us into the big cell. And when we all got to see each other and talk to each other directly, instead of tapping through walls, we had 24 hours...

The most emotionally resonant case for Barack Obama is that he will bring something fresh to American politics — that his relatively young age, relatively limited experience, and relatively short time in Washington constitute a plus rather than a minus because they mean he is untainted by the messes of the last decade or so. By contrast with John McCain, who has been in public office for a quarter-century and in Washington for several years before that, Obama is a new face. Fine. But by the time November rolls around, will Obama seem like a new face? He will have...

John McCain rarely speaks about his experiences as a POW in Vietnam, but one of his cell mates at the Hanoi Hilton on Thursday described some of the conditions and character traits that earned McCain the commendations he received for his war service. Col. George “Bud� Day, 83, is the most decorated service man since Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with more than 70 medals. A living legend, Day was blown out of the sky two months to the day before the North Vietnamese shot down a propaganda prize, whose father and grandfather were renowned American admirals....

This appears to be a large topic of discussion over at Democratic Underground and Daily Kos. The diary at Daily Kos has over 800 posts, and three diaries have been spawned from it. They are discussing the Daily Kos diary at Democratic Underground as well. If you check out the link, you can read the diary with Solzhenitsyn's story. The stories are similar, but they aren't identical. The liberals are speculating that McCain either knowingly stole the story, or he is in the early stages of dementia and mistook Solzhenitsyn's experience as his own. I give McCain the benefit of...

Here is video of an interview done by CNN's John King with Sen. John McCain, in which McCain describes his treatement as a Prisoner-of-War in Vietnam. He talks describes the prisons he was kept in, and is asked about what it was like to come to the breaking point physically. But as you watch and listen, you can see something of the kind of person McCain is - stoical, determined and not a quitter. . .

Here is video of Sen. John McCain telling the moving story of how he refused early release as a POW because it would not have been right to do so and leave other longer-held POW's in captivity. He told the story to illustrate his commitment to always "put his country first." McCain made the pledge to a Town Hall Meeting crowd of over 2,000 in York, Pennsylvania on August 12, 2008. . . .(see video)

Before you watch this video, let me tell you it will be maddening. But it is worth watching for what you can get out of it. It is raw video of Sen. John McCain in Huntington, West Virginia today, August 6, 2008, where he went to a Marshall University Football practice and then spoke to the players after the practice. He spoke about his POW experience, and how courage and sacrifice are vital to the success of any team. The video is not professional, and at times it is as if McCain's words are cut off in mid-sentence. But if...

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that a U.S. serviceman, missing from the Vietnam War, has been identified. He is Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Manuel R. Denton, U.S. Navy, of Kerrville, Texas. He will be buried as part of a group on Thursday in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. On Oct. 8, 1963, Denton was one of six men who crewed a UH-34D Choctaw helicopter that was on a search-and-rescue mission. While over Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, the helicopter came under intense enemy ground fire and crashed. There were no survivors. Over the next several...

"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." That was retired Gen. Wesley Clark's condescending assessment of John McCain's military service. Clark's words have great weight because he was speaking as a key political/military advisor to Barack Obama. If Gen. Clark had been talking about me, his remarks might be true. After all, I rode in a fighter plane and got shot down over North Vietnam. In no way do Clark's words apply to McCain. I know, because I was a firsthand witness to his singular leadership and courage....

Riling Muslim leaders, one of John McCain's fellow Vietnam POWs defended the Iraq War Friday by saying, ``The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us.'' ''I don't intend to kneel and I don't advocate to anybody that we kneel. And John doesn't advocate to anybody that we kneel,'' Col. Bud Day added in a conference call with reporters arranged by the Republican Party of Florida on behalf on McCain. Muslims and Arab-American groups quickly denounced what they described as the ''bigoted'' comments from Day, a Pensacola resident, Medal of Honor recipient and member of the...

Former President Bill Clinton (D) warned voters against electing former prisoner-of-war Senator McCain president. “POWs are not like us,” Clinton observed. “They’ve been held captive in barbaric conditions, tortured and humiliated by this country’s enemies. How can they ever be objective enough to deal with our country’s enemies as president?” Clinton argued that his evasion of military service saved him “from building up the prejudices against and hatreds for different cultures and political systems that could have compromised my ability to govern effectively. My judgment was untainted by any suffering and privation that could have biased my views. The same...

The body of Alex R. Jimenez, a Lawrence-based soldier who was kidnapped more than a year ago, has been found in Iraq in a tragic ending to a family's wrenching hope for his return. Jimenez's father, Ramon "Andy'' Jimenez, was notified by Army servicemen who came to his home yesterday that his son's body was found two days ago by Iraqi authorities, who contacted their American counterparts. The elder Ramirez, who had held out hope that he would one day see his son's return, seemed to come to terms with the news. "It comforts you when you accept something, and...

These are the never-before-seen last known photos of Sen. John McCain's Hoa Lo prison cell, images that prove that even after being cleaned up for an American historical filmmaker, the terror of the Hanoi Hilton is real. Debra Watkins, who took the pictures and video in 1993 and 1994 before this and other areas of the century-old prison were destroyed, provided them to Whispers as part of a story that appears in the Washington Whispers column. Watkins did volumes of research before traveling to Hanoi, sparked by reports the government planned to rip down most of the facility. She...

In his first sit-down interview with KDKA Political Editor Jon Delano, U.S. Sen. John McCain recounted how he would recite the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive line-up to his North Vietnamese captors. ..."When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup -- defensive line -- of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!"

THOMPSON FALLS — Rod Knutson is hardly the recluse dug up by John McCain’s campaign, as some bloggers and critics of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee contend. The former prisoner of war is a decorated war hero who earned two Silver Stars, served 32 years in the U.S. Navy, moved up the ranks at the Pentagon, lectured at the prestigious Top Gun flight school, wound up in the popular 1986 movie of the same name, lived in as many ports on the West Coast as on the East and after retirement, sailed with his family throughout the Caribbean for 4½...

There is a statue in Hanoi where McCain was shot down. I am amazed this exists: taken from http://www.everywheremag.com/places/4940/ The inscription apparently says " on October 26, 1967, John McCain was shot down here. Thirty-one other U.S. aircraft were also downed on this day, according to the inscription. " very strange. I guess they want tourism.

John Aravosis of Americablog has decided that since Barry Obambi doesn't have the service record or experience that McCain does....the clear attack should be to call John McCain a war criminal and incompetent for having been captured by enemy forces and spending several years as a POW during his service in the Vietnam War. Aravosis writes: "Getting shot down, tortured ...is not command experience". Does anyone else wanna slap this guy? I believe the American people are well aware of the McCain's service record and many consider him an American hero for enduring and sustaining all that he did. For...

John Aravosis of Americablog has decided that since Barry Obambi doesn't have the service record or experience that McCain does....the clear attack should be to call John McCain a war criminal and incompetent for having been captured by enemy forces and spending several years as a POW during his service in the Vietnam War. Aravosis writes: "Getting shot down, tortured ...is not command experience". Does anyone else wanna slap this guy? I believe the American people are well aware of the McCain's service record and many consider him an American hero for enduring and sustaining all that he did. For...

This quote was from Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, an organization that gave $600,000 in cash and supplies in "humanitarian aide" to an insurgent-controlled Fallujah several years ago in our current war (the Marines won anyway, which is perhaps why Code Pink is leading the assault against the Marines in Berkeley). That is just one toxic outburst is a collection of indefensible comments from the radical fringe of the Democratic Party laughably called "progressives" in a series of personal attacks levied at Presidential candidate John McCain and chronicled by Ben Smith in a Politico article. Prominent progressive blogger John...

John McCain's presidential campaign sent out an e-mail today announcing the formation of the McCain Truth Squad to fight back attacks such as Wesley Clark's yesterday on Face the Nation.The Politico posted the e-mail:All: Please join us for a conference call launching the McCain Truth Squad -- a new group aimed at countering the recent attacks on John McCain’s military record. On the call will be Truth Squad leaders, including fellow POWs Col. Bud Day, USAF (Ret.) (Medal of Honor) and Lt.Col. Orson Swindle, USMC (Ret.), as well as Carl Smith, retired Navy pilot who served with Sen. McCain.Looks like...

Tran Trong Duyet - a sprightly retiree and amateur ballroom dancer - must rank as one of John McCain's more unlikely supporters.Four decades ago, during the Vietnam war, Mr Duyet was in charge of the notorious Hoa Lo prison - the place where Mr McCain says he was brutally beaten and tortured during five-and-a-half years as an American prisoner of war. "McCain is my friend," said 75-year-old Mr Duyet as he feeds the caged birds he now keeps in his garden in this coastal city. "If I was American, I would vote for him." Informal chatsNavy pilot John McCain was...

Liberals were outraged in 2004 when they nominated Sen. John Kerry, who by the way, served in Vietnam, and some veterans who served with him on Swift Boats had the audacity to challenge his war heroism. So how will they greet cranky old leftist author Gore Vidal who does some "swift boating" of his own in the Sunday New York Times Magazine? Interviewer Deborah Solomon talked to the "literary lion" about John McCain, and Vidal suggested the "rumor" of McCain’s heroism should be so questioned, we might even doubt he actually served time as a POW:

About a year after his release from a North Vietnamese prison camp, McCain sat down to address one of the most vexing questions confronting his fellow prisoners: Why did some choose to collaborate with the North Vietnamese? Mr. McCain blamed American politics. “The biggest factor in a man’s ability to perform credibly as a prisoner of war is a strong belief in the correctness of his nation’s foreign policy,” Mr. McCain wrote in a 1974 essay submitted to the National War College and never released to the public. Prisoners who questioned “the legality of the war” were “extremely easy marks...

Many spurious lies have been circulated by the Crypto-Marxists about a fellow prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton. It is up to you men that lived and were tortured alongside McCain to speak up now. It's bad enough we have the CM's with BDS smearing and ashing our present President. The Left is now bringing up lies about McCain. We know all all American POW's broke eventually. It is no sin to say you did. We have heard of all the inhuman torture you all underwent. The key word is "eventually." No one can withstand the pain you have endured. I...