What Donald Trump was up to while John McCain was suffering as a prisoner of war

Washington Post ^ | July 20, 2015 | By Michael E. Miller and Fred Barbash

[rickyrikardo]

It was the spring of 1968 and Donald Trump had it good.

He was 21 years old and handsome with a full head of hair. He avoided the Vietnam War draft on his way to earning an Ivy League degree. He was fond of fancy dinners, beautiful women and outrageous clubs. Most important, he had a job in his father’s real estate company and a brain bursting with money-making ideas that would make him a billionaire.

“When I graduated from college, I had a net worth of perhaps $200,000,” he said in his 1987 autobiography “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” written with Tony Schwartz. (That’s about $1.4 million in 2015 dollars.) “I had my eye on Manhattan.”

More than 8,000 miles away, John McCain sat in a tiny, squalid North Vietnamese prison cell. The Navy pilot’s body was broken from a plane crash, starvation, botched operations and months of torture.

[ElainaVer]

Agree. Remember this video? https://youtu.be/XvvePpE8u1M

[DoodleDawg]

I was refering to the media

I know.

[centurion316]

Not a word about the accounts from other POW’s that were there claiming he caved and made over 30 videos dissing the US.

I'd love to know who the other POWs are. I know about other vets making such claims, but I don't know of any POW who was with McCain saying anything. The POWs that I know personally won't say anything, one way or another. Their position is that what happened in Hanoi is between them and them only. Is there someone who is talking now?

[tioga]

The left spit on Vietnam War era vets, so NOW they are all heros? Interesting.

I get what Trump was trying to say, McCain didn’t earn hero status for bravery on the battle front. He didn’t save lives of his fellow soldiers. His plane crashed and he was captured. His heroism comes from enduring the prisoner of war camp. I just don’t see the big deal.

[silverleaf]

Not to beat this horse anymore but the “facts” of McCains conduct while a POW are very much questionable, he has few friends if any among former POWs and the only thing that kept a lid on the facts was the unwillingness if the POW command structure ( of which McCain was not in) to rat out their own

What’s fact is the extreme efforts of McCain the Senator to suppress information about the POWs and the MIAs and to expedite US policy to leave behind the men who never came home, while treating their families and buddies with the utmost extreme contempt and meanness .... For reasons that have never rationally been explained

Ever see war hero McCain at the big Rolling Thunder rallies in DC to honor Vietnam vets? No? Research what Rolling Thunder vets think of McCain

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

At 7 years of age in Indonesia, memorizing parts of the holey koran (PBUH - Perdition Be. Upon Him).

[ScottinVA]

If Grandpa were alive today, Trump wouldn't be fit to shine his shoes.

Thanks to your Granddad for his service to the nation! And I agree... Trump wouldn't be fit to shine his shoes.. or those of any other veteran.

[BigEdLB]

So by referring to “Hobbits McCain”, you are saying he has harry feet.? Works for me. Something has to explain what he has become.

[silverleaf]

Code of honor

They won’t talk about McCain especially to you unless you were there

Decision made by the real heros who established a chain of command among the POWs. What went on in Hanoi stayed in Hanoi except for what came out in debriefings

which Senator McCain fought very hard to discredit or keep classified

But if you ever meet any and ask you will get the distinct impression of contempt

[ncalburt]

What a load of BS your peddling.Nasty troll.

You have some gall lecturing any here on Decent people !

John Mclame is evil petty tyrant.

He smears his own AZ voters as Crazies or fellow senators as Wackos and the tea Party as hobbits.
Johnny left his wife with cancer for a rich girl half hid age.

But I guess that your idea of a decent guy !

[B212]

and so...what do we, collectively, know about Obama>>>0<<<<

[grania]

Me: I remember the 1960s. Avoiding VN and staying within the law was acceptable behavior

You: by whom?

By a segment of the population that didn't like the war and didn't want their loved ones fighting it. There was another segment of the population that took it as a matter of patriotism to serve and not question the government's intentions. That's why the lottery came along. People were so disgusted with those profiting from VN and voting for it were finding ways for their loved ones to avoid it. It wasn't long after the lottery came in that the war ended.

What I don't like is the double standard....Quayle and Trump get criticized for not serving; Gore, Clinton, and Romney (to some degree) got a pass. Selective outrage benefits no one.

I still have to ask my question that no one brings up. What happened to McCain in VN was horrible, for sure. So why is he all for war-mongering in the Middle East? Think of all of the deaths and hostages and broken lives that have occurred at our hands in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine etc.....with McCain's enthusiastic support.

[anton]

Its not too hard to find dispute about his war record. I just don’t care. he is an asshat.

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/02/17/in-1992-pows-accused-mccain-of-collaborating-with-vietnamese/

Among groups who oppose John McCain, the most serious charges come from a small but fervent cadre of Vietnam POW/MIA activists who accuse him of being a collaborator during his time in the Vietnamese POW camps.
Activists accused McCain of stonewalling the release of POW records because they contained evidence he had collaborated with the North Vietnamese.
They call McCain “Songbird,” and say he received special treatment. Some in the POW community even believe he was brainwashed like Raymond Shaw, the character played by Laurence Harvey in “The Manchurian candidate,” who was used as a tool by the communists to destroy America from within.

The issue boiled over in 1992 after POW families and activists felt they had been mistreated by McCain during hearings before the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. In the video above (posted at Vietnam Veterans against McCain) which was apparently shot soon after the hearings, POW advocates and experts, as well as Republican politicians, including then-Rep. Bob Dornan of California, assert that McCain was stonewalling the release of POW documents because his own records included transcripts of interviews he gave to communist and other media outlets in which he said the U.S. military had deliberately bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam.

[miss marmelstein]

Yes, I know!

[bray]

They care as much for the vets as they do for blacks. Just a tool to further the agenda.

Pray America is waking

[Savage Beast]

WOW! THE TROGLODYTES ARE IN A PANIC!

[ConservativeMind]

And what has John McCain been up to for the past forty years. while Donald Trump has been working?

[SamAdams76]

If the Washington Post is so “fond” of John McCain and his military record, why didn’t they endorse him when he was the GOP nominee in 2008? Why did they instead endorse a candidate that was and is openly hostile to our military?

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"What’s fact is the extreme efforts of McCain the Senator to suppress information about the POWs and the MIAs and to expedite US policy to leave behind the men who never came home, while treating their families and buddies with the utmost extreme contempt and meanness .... For reasons that have never rationally been explained"

I already mentioned previously that his actions as a Senator in regards to quashing the POW issue is fair game. I criticize him on that myself regularly. As for your assertion that POWs hate him etc...

"Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill. Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda victory of the son and grandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. "He wasn't corruptible then," Mr. Day says, "and he's not corruptible today."

Bud Day articl

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120951606847454685

If you want to know who Bud Day was, he was a MOH recipient and also was awarded the Air Force Cross. His character was unimpeachable. One other thing, he was John McCain's cell mate for much of McCain's POW time. He had nothing but the highest praise for McCain's conduct as a POW. Now who are you going to believe? McCain's cellmate or some unnamed Vietnam vet or POW? Where are all these propoganda tapes he supposedly made? My guess is that people have made a lot of these statements because of his unconsciounable actions as a Senator. Again, criticize his record as a Senator, especially in regards to the POW issue, but not his service as that by all accounts is unimpeachable...

[Old Teufel Hunden]

see my post 79...