Posted on 08/27/2018 1:11:54 PM PDT by blu
Ever since, McCain has added compelling details at key points in his political career. When his stories are placed beside documented evidence from other sources, significant contradictions often emerge. One such case involves McCain’s experience in the devastating fire and explosions that killed 134 sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal during the Vietnam War three months before he was shot down over North Vietnam. McCain has made claims about this accident that differ dramatically from parts of the official Navy report and accounts of reliable eyewitnesses.
(Excerpt) Read more at truthdig.com ...
Giving mea culpas for McCain is only something the RoveBushies did after their handshake deal that McCain would not run with Kerry against non military chickens Bush and Cheney during wartime in 2004.
Why are you doing it now, like a researcher for the faux History Channel?
Something is very wrong with that statement. The plane carrying the Zuni missile was about as far aft as it could be. They also confirmed that it fired due to an electrical malfunction they didn’t think possible. Safeties had been disconnected and electricity traveled the circuit in a way they didn’t think could happen IIRC.
In fact, I linked to it on this site, for a discussion on this very topic. The NYT site has two or three sentences posted from the article, but you need to subscribe to see more. Maybe that wasn't the case when I read the article way back when...
His behavior in the Senate and with Palin proves who he was prior to that point.
Reagan couldn’t stand him. Nuff said.
If you think I'm defending McCain you're nuttier than I thought. Who posted this post over 300 times between Nov. 2006 and Jan. 2008?
You can KMA.
could not agree more.
A faked photo of McCain’s “rescue” in Vietnam remains a fake photo... the question is why?
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3682655/posts?page=67#67
But I am glad you lambasted McCain back in the day.
My question was why are you defending him now?
Why don’t you start with helping everyone figure out who and why anyone would fake a photo of McCain’s rescue?
see post 86
Your defense of McCain doesn’t make sense despite your KMA request.
Again, who and why did someone fake McCain’s rescue photograph back in the day?
There is something very very weird going on there.
P.S. Karl Rove wrote the Hobbit piece McCain quoted from that day on the Senate Floor.
; )
Gee, if you saw it on the internet, then it must be true.
Back in the day?
you seem to specialize in talking out your arse.
You're on your own with imagining things in photographs.
That’s nice.
Do you need a better computer screen? Because on all my screens I see the old time newspaper “black out” and cut and paste job of hands, arms and heads everywhere.
Should I submit the photo to some graphic artists I know for better analysis, because I think FReepers for the most part, can see a fake job.
Reminds me of the missing people in those Stalin Soviet photos... LOL
Heck, you didn’t drag me into anything, thanks for the ping.
This is something a lot of people don’t know much about, and I know a bit, so I don’t ever think it is a bad idea to try to educate people about the facts.
pfflier, it was not a violation of standing procedures and direct orders that resulted in that spurious signal.
It was a calculated risk, they knew it was a risk to have the cannon plugs connected at that stage of the launch cycle, but they were trying to speed up the tempo of flight operations at that point in time. (My understanding of it is that connecting them at that point as they were spotted on the fantail rather than waiting until the aircraft was on its way or actually on the catapult saved some amount of time they deemed worthy of the risk)
They discussed the risk at multiple levels and deemed it an acceptable one and got it approved as an additional method to accelerate the launch cycle.
Unfortunately, it was the wrong choice and men died as a result.
Better link...
McCain was the only POW not to be debriefed?
Hmmmm
NOTE: I hope people don’t take this personally, because I don’t mean it as such. I understand there are a lot of aspects of this people simply don’t have knowledge about. I do, I worked on the Flight Deck as a Plane Captain, Jet Mechanic, and Troubleshooter. I spent many hours on the fantail with planes parked all around the edges exactly as they were on July 29, 1967. I trained in a squadron where McCain was the Commanding Officer, and when I went to the fleet, I was assigned to the VA-46 Clansmen, the same squadron McCain was in when the fire occurred, so we all knew of the fire and were reminded of it constantly, often in good natured ribbing from other squadrons. So my perspective on this is meant to help educate people who may not have first hand experience with carrier flight operations. If I say something is “idiotic” or “stupid”, I am attacking the notion, not the person who may not know any better.
That said, If that NYT article was published on July 31st, my issue would be that it was only day or two after the event, and fresh stories differ widely between many people who see the same thing. Capt. John K. Beling wasn’t even on the bridge when this happened, I believe he was in his stateroom, so he likely was alerted by either an emergency call or the sound of General Quarters or some other alarms or announcements.
Not a good thing.
It isn’t hard to imagine that with all the confusion, on his asking for a situation report hearing someone say “There was a flame like a wet start near the island, and then everything went up”.
They had no idea at the time how the fire started, none. It was likely complete pandemonium, which in a situation like that, even in a well trained crew, would have been the mostly likely result.
Fire around planes and ordinance would certainly do that.
But the whole idea of a “wet start” is just idiotic. (Even if McCain’s plane had a “hot start” with his tailpipe pointing out towards the water, how could that ignite a missile on the other side of the flight deck. It can’t.)
The person who blames it on a wet start doesn’t even have an idea of what a wet start is. Wet starts are not uncommon. You trained for it, and it happened often enough that you simply abort the start. It isn’t rocket science and there is nothing scary or threatening about a wet start (except having it progress to a hot start). The Plane Captain sees the plume of aerosolized fuel coming out the tailpipe, the Pilot sees his EGT isn’t rising as is should, and the engine start is aborted. This is all standard.
It has been many years, but I recall that we would simply wait a few minutes, then have the Huffer blow air through the engine without any fuel being dumped in, and when the mist stopped coming out the back, we would attempt another start.
Every once in a great while (and I only saw it once while doing maintenance) it happens quite by accident where you have wet start and during the time interval where the Plane Captain and Pilot are both preparing to terminate the engine start, it catches, and a plume of flame shoots out the back. IIRC, the EGT (Exhaust Gas Temperature) which on the engine I worked on was right behind the turbine, also spikes up and can be a real problem. That was dangerous on the plane I worked on, because the engine had problems with turbine blade cracks at high temperature. The engine (Rolls Royce-Detroit Diesel Allison TF-41) had a thermal governor on the engine to try to keep those cracks from developing by limiting the EGT electronically.
Point is, people want to pin this on McCain, and it simply was not his fault. It wasn’t.
I leave it up to his fellow POW’s to pass judgment on him for his conduct in Hanoi. They know what happened. He knows what happened, so if McCain was indeed an enemy collaborator as some think, his cellmates knew it, he knew it, and he knew that his cellmates knew it. If McCain wanted to rationalize or conceal his conduct, if he had any honor, it would torture him. If he had no honor, well, it wouldn’t have tortured him any more than Mary Jo Kopechne’s death tortured Ted Kennedy.
From a personal, patriotic, and political standpoint, I tend to think of him in much the same light as I do Ted Kennedy. And that is not a compliment.
But as other posters have opined, blaming anything that happened on the USS Forrestal in 1967 on John S. McCain III is blind hatred and/or ignorance. Doing so makes us look ignorant and allows us to be easily dismissed, it takes away from the real issues that Senator McCain had that he should be pilloried for, but worst of all, it trivializes the men who fought that fire and saved that ship, both living and dead.
We should focus on his conduct in the Senate and allow his cellmates and other veterans of that conflict to criticize him as they see fit. That is their prerogative, in my opinion.
I understand the calculated risk aspect but the very need to review such a change indicates there were more strict procedures in place that were bypassed.
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