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Stockdale flew many aircraft types. McCain flew the A-4 because he was not good enough to fly others. McCain did things at the Academy and Flight School that would have gotten kids who were not the son and grandson of Admirals tossed out of each. McCain was near the bottom of his class; there is more, much more, but the point is that while you might find similarities between McCain and Stockdale, I can tell you about hundreds of differences between those two men.

Yes I read about his Academy and Flight School antics pretty bad. I would probably have been thrown in jail for the same stuff.

You said he was a bad pilot, maybe thats why he got the A-4 but thats not why he got shot down over Hanoi, that was just the breaks.

My take is not really about McCain or any of the other personalities as I don't know any thing of them except from what I read. My take is more to that lots of people can be (on a sliding scale) a screwup rise to greatness, fail slide back, screwup some more etc.

Even if the A-4 was not the most desired airplane it was still taking the ordinance downtown. McCain or whoever, you have to give them that. I remember seeing footage of 105's Wild Weasel missions, the whole mountainsides lit up with AA fire and SAM's directed at them, AND THEY'RE ROLLING INTO IT

Finally I need to remember people cant read your mind on the Freep even if they think they can so I need to explain better from where I approach an issue.