Free Republic

~snip~ Where the accounts differ most starkly is in the period of Mr McCain’s long incarceration as a PoW – first at the prison known as the Hanoi Hilton, then at The Plantation. Tran Trong Duyet, the former prison director who now surrounds himself with caged birds in a house in Hai Phong, first met Mr McCain a year after he had been shot down. He recalls a defiant rule-breaker, the patriotic son of an admiral and a fervent believer in the war. What he does not recall, however, is a victim of torture or violence. “I never tortured or...

John McCain has won an unusual endorsement for his presidential campaign - from the man who was his jailer in wartime Vietnam. John McCain was shot down and badly wounded while bombing a Hanoi power station on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam in 1967. He was a prisoner for over five years. Because Mr McCain's father was commander of all American forces in the Pacific theatre, the Vietnamese called him "the prince". Tran Trong Duyet, the commandant of Hao Lo prison in Hanoi from 1968-73, recalls Mr McCain "as a typical child of a traditional military family. He was...