As I read these comments it saddens me to realize that people have bought into the 'created' public version of mccain's service and conduct while a POW. A version the late Col. David Hackworth described as a "very slick publicity campaign that plays on flag, duty, honor and country" ~ a version specifically designed to politically market mccain as "genuine war hero." ~ a version the facts simply DO NOT support.
Within days of his capture this son of Admiral Edmond John McCain, commander in chief of U.S. naval forces in Europe, admittedly collaborated with the enemy by trading "military information" and making public statements that appeared favorable to the communist war effort in exchange for "special treatment".
mccain wrote in a May 14, 1973 article for U.S. News and World Report:
"I think it was on the fourth day [after being shot down] that two guards came in, instead of one. One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guard my injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size of a football . . . when I saw it, I said to the guard, 'O.K., get the officer' . . . an officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to know very well as 'The Bug.' He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with. I said, 'O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.'"
.. which he did! He violated the military Code of Conduct and willfully collaborated with the Vietnamese, Soviets, and Cubans. (See: DOD document 1 and DOD document 2 )
In direct violation of the Code of Conduct, mccain (who was supposedly in "solitary confinement",) met with and was interviewed by several foreign news reporters and political delegations, including many high-ranking North Vietnamese leaders, such as Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam's Minister of Defense and national hero.
Regardless of the reasons, giving "military information" in exchange for better treatment was a violation of the military Code of Conduct!
When told by the doctor that "It's too late." to be taken to the hospital mccain invoked the name of his famous father, Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., the soon-to-be commander of all U.S. Forces in the Pacific. That was a violation of the Code of Conduct!
mccain acknowledges that because of the Vietnamese having the knowledge of who his father was they rushed him to the hospital. That the Vietnamese figured that, because his father was of such high military, he was of royalty or the governing circle. The communist bragged that they had captured "the crown prince." and believed that because mccain came from a "royal family," he would, when finally released, return to the United States to some important military or government job.
The Vietnamese later erected the Memorial at Truc Bach Lake. The memorial is near the site of mccain's landing in the lake and features a stone figure of a pilot raising his arms skyward in surrender. It refers to their catch mccain, by name, as an "air pirate."
24 years after mccain returned to the United States, in a 1997 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace, mccain appeared to validate this "Air pirate" label when he acknowledged that he was a 'war criminal' because he had bombed, "innocent women and children."
As Devvy Kidd succinctly wrote this past August, mccain is "THE ULTIMATE "RHINESTONE HERO"":
"When one totals McCain's 23 missions over North Vietnam, times the number of minutes he was actually over enemy territory (approximately 20 to 35 minutes per mission), mccain's total time over Vietnam before being shot down, was about 10 1/2 hours.
For those 10 1/2 hours over Vietnam, mccain (the Admiral's son) was awarded two Silver Stars, two Legions of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Bronze Stars, the Vietnamese Legion of Honor and three Purple Hearts averaging over one hero medal per hour.
Compare McCain's 10 1/2 hours of combat and 13 medals to that of a U.S. infantry private who spent 365 days trudging through South Vietnam’s jungle and mud, facing death on a daily basis. He was lucky to leave Vietnam with a simple good conduct ribbon.
Compare McCain's record as a prisoner of war to that of Army Special Forces Captain "Rocky" Versace, who was captured by Vietnamese Communists (Viet Cong) on Oct. 29, 1963 in South Vietnam and who resisted his captors to the end. Very few, if any, in Congress or the media know about Capt. Versace.
He spent two years chained in a bamboo cage and endured almost daily torture by the Vietnamese Communists. Capt. Versace continuously frustrated his Viet Cong interrogators by refusing to obey demands that he denounce America and accept the Communist Philosophy of revolution. He told his captors as they were dragging him to an interrogation hut, "I am an officer of the United States Army. You can force me to come here, you can make me sit and listen, but I don't have to believe a damn word you say."
The Viet Cong decided that day to take no more resistance from Rocky Versace. A few days later, on order of Viet Cong leader Vo Van Kiet (today Vietnam's prime minister and mccain's friend) Versace was dragged from his filth-ridden, mosquito-infested bamboo cage for the last time and forced to kneel with his forehead pressed into the jungle mud. Cap. Versace was then shot in the back of the head.
mccain doesn't talk about MIAs Capt. Rocky Versace, from Norfolk, VA., or Sgt. Kenneth Roraback of Fayetteville, N.C., or Army Sgt. Harold Bennett of Perryville, Ark., who were all ordered executed by his friend, "Butcher" Kiet, according to reports.
Compare mccain, the POW hero, to another fellow prisoner of war, Marine Capt. Donald Cook, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Capt. Cook was awarded our nation's highest award for valor because, during his years of captivity, he jeopardized his own health by sharing his meager supply of food and scarce medicines with other U.S. prisoners who were sicker. He became legendary for his refusal to betray the military Code of Conduct. On one occasion, Vo Van Kiet's Viet Cong cadre put a pistol to Capt. Cook's head, demanding that he denounce the United States. Capt. Cook resisted and calmly recited the nomenclature of the parts of the pistol, giving the Communists nothing.
The Viet Cong were so infuriated at Capt. Cook's resistance that they isolated him from other American prisoners. They intentionally denied him much needed food and medicine. Like Capt. Versace, Capt. Cook disappeared and was never heard from again. Today, Hanoi claims Capt. Cook died as a result of malaria and that they do not know where his remains are buried.
mccain discourages any talk about Capt. Versace, Sgt. Roraback, Sgt. Bennett, and Capt. Cook.
To talk about such patriots would require the United States to demand the return of their remains, or, at the very least, records of their deaths. If those MIAs are proven dead and their remains returned, then mccain's friend, Vo Van Kiet, would be forced to explain the holes in the back of their skulls and why he had ordered the POWs murdered."
I ask that everyone remember that, as a member of the 1992 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, it was mccain who took the lead in demanding a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the POW/MIA families and activists who openly challenge the U.S. government's POW/MIA policy (many of whom walked the halls of Congress during the Vietnam War years demanding America's prisoners of war, including POW mccain, not be forgotten.)
That it was mccain who accused these activists of fraud because in some of their fund-raising literature the activists claimed the U.S. government knowingly left U.S. POWs behind after the Vietnam War and that some remain alive today.
That it was mccain who openly attacked these people in the press stating that they were "not zealots in a good cause. They are the most craven, most cynical and most despicable human beings to ever run a scam." (for the record, the Justice Department did investigate the POW/MIA activists and their organizations and found no reason to charge any POW/MIA activist.)
Considering that mccain admittedly collaborated with the enemy and made public statements favorable to the communist war effort in exchange for "special treatment" the use of viciously maligning words such as "craven", "despicable" and "scam" to discredit Americans working to resolve MIA/POW issues was outrageous and indicative of a character totally devoid of integrity.
Frankly, I feel affording this man respect diminishes us all.
