Is McCain a war hero?
By Vietnam era definitions, maybe. By historic definitions, NO.
Maybe someone could quickly provide us with a list of great POW war heroes from WWI, WWII and Korea.
I think the Vietnam POWs became substitute heroes as US involvement in that war wound down because people looked around for something to celebrate, or something to be positive about, and the return of the POWs was the only thing they could find. There was much TV coverage of their return and many recognitions, etc. Probably as a substitute for the victory parades of earlier wars.
POW survivors can be admired for many things, but I don’t think they’ve ever been called war heroes before Vietnam.
Anyone have a list from prior wars?
During WWI and II and Korea, American prisoners were not used/tortured for propaganda purposes but for current information. Even without the Geneva Conventions of ‘49, combatants on both sides knew that a POW’s information-bank lost value with time.
Not so during Vietnam. The North Vietnamese and their allies tortured for propaganda and, in a sense, dhimmitude. The need for propaganda, as outlined by both Ho & Giap, produced torture on an almost regular basis. To avoid torture, all a POW had to do was cooperate; and as many POWs will tell you—just about every one of them broke, but only after they’d taken much more (including death) than any previous American POW.
Unlike the Japan death march, NV-held POWs had a choice: they could cooperate and live if not well at least free of torture; or they could resist attempts at being used by NV and take punishment.
That, along with the facts that 1) they took this kind of punishment for over twice the length of time as any other previous American combatant and 2)they attempted to make those who collaborated accountable for their actions (even tho their government refused to acknowledge those charges) makes them heroes.
And you’re quite right—before Vietnam POWs (if they were lucky) were merely survivors; during Vietnam they were still very much part of the war that would “be won on the streets of America” with antiwar and anti-soldier propaganda. They CHOSE heroism.