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(McCain graduated 894th out of a class of 899.)

That's not usually a recommendation to become a Navy pilot...unless your daddy is an admiral with lots of influence. Crashing 5 airplanes before getting shot down in Viet Nam isn't normally tolerated either.

Do you know if there is any truth to the stories that he was treated better than the rest and came home weighing more like a healthy man than a POW?

I refer to him as the Manchurian Candidate.

Within days of his release, McCain himself, wrote the following account of his captivity, which was published in U.S. News and World Report - May 14, 1973.

"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.'"

McCain had his wounds treated in one of their military hospitals where they treated their own officers, he received treatment not available for other U.S. prisoners of war.

Here is a link to a memorial on the soil of North Vietnam referencing McCain.

Here is a comment from another POW captured at the same time as McCain. He argues that McCain is no hero for not taking advantage of the offer of an early release. He was following orders from the senior officers present. The North Vietnamese tried to leverage McCain's status as the son of an admiral.

Salon has a different account here. McCain was certainly treated like an animal in the POW camp. Everyone was treated like an animal. It was a wretched experience. Still, his performance in the real world since that experience is a good indicator of preferences and prejudices. I would never vote for him based on his behavior in political world. There are better alternatives.

My dad was working in Pentagon from 1966 to 1969. He received a daily brief on McCain's status. He worked closely with McCain's father (the admiral). My dad's view of McCain was always colored by the inside information that he was not permitted to share.