I actually had personal experience with McCain when I was in the USN and was in the training squadron he commanded after he was released by the North Vietnamese.
That experience was a burden to me.
One of my faults, and people close to me tell me this, is my personal loyalty to people who have earned it with me and institutions that deserve it from me. I had a retired Army Colonel call me to her office one day, and she told me frankly that my personal loyalty, while generally commendable in her eyes, was a character fault if I didn’t govern it. She was right, of course, and I knew it having heard it from others, but when she said it, I took a hard look.
When I was a kid, I viewed McCain the same way I viewed every other POW. As a military dependent, I wore the POW bracelets and knew many of the POW’s by name, even if relatively few Americans did.
I viewed them as heroes deserving of my support for their hardships...Stockdale, Denton, McCain, etc.
Then when I joined the USN and served under him for a few months, I saw him close up and was even his plane captain trainee a few times.
That became a burden to me, because long, long after I should have recognized him for the bitter, corrupt, personal partisan he was, I refused to do so because he was Navy, I had served under him, and had supported his cause. The loyalty to the US Navy ran deep with me.
I was lucky, after defending him here on FR for a period of time, I had a Freeper gently educate me without blistering my skin, as so often happens around here. If he had taken that approach, I would have dug my heels in, because that is the way I am. But he completely understood why I acted towards McCain as I did, and helped me understand why I was wrong to defend him.
As time went on, Hoo Boy, was that Freeper right. I wish I could remember his name...because I would like to say thank you.
Although it would take time, if the discussion with the FReeper was open, it will be in your history (just have to keep scrolling back). If it was in FReepmail and you didn’t delete the discussion, you should also be able to find it by scrolling back.
In any event, I’m glad you were able to wake up and smell the Benedict Arnold on McQueeg. He wasn’t fit to shine the shoes of Admirals Denton and Stockdale.