[Centurion2000]

If he could do it over and had a choice, I’m sure John McCain would rather eat a family size box of Agent Orange every day, than repeat what he experienced during the war.

Considering the amount of cancer that Agent Orange generates, he's better off taking the torture.

My father, US Army infantry, (RIP) died at 60 from this crap and the goddamned VA denied his claims.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

You have my sympathies. It was rhetorical, of course, but what I had in mind was that of torture the worst part is the human cruelty behind it. The lash doesn’t sting like the knowledge that a fellow human being is taking satisfaction in the infliction of it.
If McCain’s physical injuries had been caused by some unavoidable car crash instead of deliberately sadistic people, if he could have avoided learning what one human being is capable of doing to another, I think he’d have chosen that. The inanimate object doesn’t break hearts.