Early life and military career of John McCain
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The early life and military career of John Sidney McCain III
spans the first forty-five years of his life (1936–1981). McCain's father
and grandfather
were admirals
in the United States Navy
. McCain was born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone
, and attended many schools growing up as his family moved among naval facilities. McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy
in 1958. He married the former Carol Shepp
in 1965; he adopted two children from her previous marriage and they had another child together.
As a naval aviator
, McCain flew attack aircraft from carriers
. During the Vietnam War
, he narrowly escaped death in the 1967 Forrestal fire
. On his twenty-third bombing mission in October 1967, he was shot down over Hanoi
and badly injured. He subsequently endured five and a half years as a prisoner of war
, including periods of torture
. In 1968, he refused a North Vietnam
ese offer of early release, because it would have meant leaving before other prisoners who had been held longer. He was released in 1973 after the Paris Peace Accords
.
Upon his return, McCain studied at the National War College
, commanded a large training squadron in Florida, and was appointed the Navy liaison to the U.S. Senate. He divorced his wife Carol in 1980 and married the former Cindy Hensley
shortly thereafter. He retired from the Navy in 1981 as a captain.
John Sidney McCain III was born on August 29, 1936, at a United States Navy
hospital at Coco Solo Naval Air Station
in Panama Canal Zone
, Panama
, to Navy officer John S. "Jack" McCain, Jr.
(1911–1981) and Roberta (Wright) McCain
(1912– ). McCain is of Scots-Irish and English
ancestry.
John McCain's grandparents were natives of Arkansas
, Mississippi
, and Texas
, and much of his ancestry was Southern
on both his mother's side and father's side. The McCain family's patrilineal
ancestral home is in Mississippi's Carroll County
; they owned and ran a 2000 acres (8.1 km²) plantation in Teoc
from 1848 until 1952. The plantation had slaves before the American Civil War
– some of whose descendants share the surname and call themselves the "black McCains
" – and sharecroppers afterward; influential blues guitarist Mississippi John Hurt
was born on the plantation to one of the latter.
The McCain family tree has a long heritage of American military service, with ancestors fighting as soldiers in the Indian Wars
, American Revolutionary War
(due to which McCain maintains a membership with the Sons of the American Revolution
), War of 1812
, for the Confederate States of America
in the American Civil War, and in World War I
. The tree also includes roguish behavior and economic success. John McCain's maternal grandfather, Archibald Wright (1875–1971), was a Mississippi native who migrated to Muskogee, Oklahoma
in his twenties, ran afoul of the law with several gambling and bootlegging charges, then became a strong-willed wildcatter
who prospered on land deals during the early statehood years
and struck oil in the Southwest. Rich by age forty, he never worked again and became a stay-at-home father. Raising a family in Oklahoma
and Southern California
, he instilled in Roberta and her twin sister Rowena a lifelong habit of travel and adventure. There is also independent-minded behavior in the family tree: Jack McCain and Roberta Wright eloped and married in a bar in Tijuana, Mexico, when Archibald Wright's wife Myrtle objected to Roberta's association with a sailor.
McCain's father and paternal grandfather eventually became Navy admirals
, and were the first father-son pair to achieve four-star admiral rank. His grandfather, Admiral John S. "Slew" McCain, Sr.
(1884–1945), was a pioneer of aircraft carrier
operations who in 1942 commanded all land-based air operations in support of the Guadalcanal campaign
, and who ultimately in 1944–1945 aggressively led the Fast Carrier Task Force
in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II
. His operations off the Philippines and Okinawa
, and air strikes against Formosa
and the Japanese home islands, caused tremendous destruction of Japanese naval and air forces in the closing period of the war. His death four days after the Japanese surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay
was front page news. Jack McCain was a submarine commander in several theaters of operation in World War II and was decorated with both the Silver Star
and Bronze Star
.
For his first ten years, "Johnny" McCain (the family nickname he was given) was frequently uprooted as his family, including older sister Sandy (born 1934) and younger brother Joe
(born 1942), followed his father to New London, Connecticut
, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and other stations in the Pacific Ocean. Summer vacations were sometimes spent at the family's Teoc plantation, but McCain always felt his heritage was military, not Southern. McCain attended whatever naval base school was available, often to the detriment of his education, as schools were sometimes substandard and their curricula often erratic. After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor
, his father was absent for long stretches. His formal education was supplemented by the efforts of his mother, who took advantage of the family's many long-distance travels to expose him to historical and cultural sites. He later wrote, "She taught me to find so much pleasure in life that misfortune could not rob me of the joy of living." A Republican
, she also made sure that he followed current events, although his parents avoided outward partisan affiliations due to his father's military career.
After World War II ended, his father stayed in the Navy, sometimes working political liaison posts. The family settled in Northern Virginia
, and McCain attended the educationally stronger St. Stephen's School
in Alexandria
from 1946 to 1949. To his family, McCain had long been quiet, dependable, and courteous, while at St. Stephen's he began to develop an unruly, defiant streak. Another two years were then spent following his father to naval stations; altogether he attended about twenty schools during his youth. He was frequently disciplined in school for fighting. He later wrote, "The repeated farewells to friends rank among the saddest regrets of a childhood constantly disrupted by the demands of my father's career... At each new school I arrived eager to make, by means of my insolent attitude, new friends to compensate for the loss of others. At each new school I grew more determined to assert my crude individualism. At each new school I became a more unrepentant pain in the neck."
In 1951, McCain enrolled at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, an academically superior, all-male private boarding school with a rigorous honor code
, tradition of hazing
, and spartan living environment. Most of the children there were sons of wealthy Southerners, from whom McCain got a glimpse of life and career aspirations outside the Navy culture. Nicknamed "Punk" and "McNasty" due to his combative, fiery disposition, McCain enjoyed and cultivated that tough guy image; he also made a few friends. McCain earned two varsity letter
s in wrestling
, excelling in the lighter weight classes
. He also played on the junior varsity
football
team and the tennis team, and participated in the student newspaper, yearbook, and drama club. English teacher William Bee Ravenel III
, who was also his football coach, became a great influence towards his sense of learning, honor, and self-image. With what he later termed an "undistinguished, but acceptable" academic record, McCain graduated from high school in 1954.
Having done well on its entrance exams, McCain entered the United States Naval Academy
in Annapolis, Maryland
in June 1954, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He had neither been ordered to go there by his parents nor discussed alternatives; as he later wrote, "I remember simply recognizing my eventual enrollment at the Academy as an immutable fact of life, and accepting it without comment."
Ambivalent about his presence there, McCain chose not to conform to the Academy's rules and some of its traditions. Each year he was given over a hundred demerits – earning him membership in the "Century Club" – for offenses such as shoes not being shined, formation faults, room in disorder, and talking out of place. His father came to the Academy to reprimand him on his behavior a number of times. He hated "plebe year", the trial by ordeal and hazing
of entering midshipmen that would eventually weed out one quarter of the class. He did not take well to those of higher rank arbitrarily wielding power over him – "It was bullshit, and I resented the hell out of it" – and occasionally intervened when he saw it being done to others. At 5-foot 7 inches and 127 pounds (1.70 m and 58 kg), he competed as a lightweight boxer for three years, where he lacked skills but was fearless and "didn't have a reverse gear". In his final year, he managed the battalion boxing team to a brigade championship.
Possessed of a strong intelligence, McCain did well in a few subjects that interested him, such as English literature, history, and government. There was a fixed Bachelor of Science
curriculum taken by all midshipmen; McCain's classmates were impressed by his cramming abilities on mathematics, science, and engineering courses and thought his low grades were by inclination and not ability, while McCain would later acknowledge that those courses were a struggle for him. His class rank was further lowered by poor grades for conduct and leadership, which reflected his sloppy appearance, rebellious attitude, and poor relations with his company officer
. Despite his low standing, he was popular and a leader among his fellow midshipmen, in what biographer Robert Timberg called a "manic, intuitive, highly idiosyncratic way". Good at attracting women, he was famed for organizing off-Yard activities with a group who called themselves "the Bad Bunch"; one classmate said that "being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck." Other midshipmen were annoyed by his behavior. A June 1957 training cruise aboard the destroyer found McCain showing good skills at the conn
, and the destination stop in Rio de Janeiro
led to a dream-like romance with Brazilian fashion model and ballerina Maria Gracinda that persisted through a Christmastime reunion.
McCain graduated from the Naval Academy in June 1958; he was fifth from the bottom in class rank
, 894th out of 899. Despite his difficulties, McCain later wrote that he never defamed the more compelling traditions of the Academy – courage, resilience, honor, and sacrifice for one's country – and he never wavered in his desire to show his father and family that he was of the same mettle as his naval forebears. Indeed, Slew and Jack McCain had not had sterling records at the Academy themselves, finishing in the bottom third and bottom twentieth respectively. McCain realized later that the Academy had taught him that "to sustain my self-respect for a lifetime it would be necessary for me to have the honor of serving something greater than my self-interest", a lesson that he would need to carry him through a "desperate and uncertain" time a decade later.
in training, first at Naval Air Station Pensacola
in Florida
through September 1959, and then at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi
in Texas, during which time he was promoted to lieutenant, junior grade
. He earned a reputation as a party man, as he drove a Corvette
, dated an exotic dancer
named "Marie the Flame of Florida", spent all his free time on the beach or in a Bachelor Officer Quarters room turned bar and friendly gambling den, and, as he later said, "generally misused my good health and youth". He began as a sub-par flier: he had limited patience for studying aviation manuals, and spent study time reading history books instead. He was not assigned to the elite units flying fighter aircraft
, and instead became a pilot of attack aircraft. During a March 1960 practice run in Texas, he lost track of his altitude and speed, and his single-seat, single-pistoned-engine AD-6 Skyraider crashed into Corpus Christi Bay
and sank to the bottom. Although momentarily knocked unconscious by the impact, he squeezed out of the cockpit and swam ten feet to the surface, escaping without major injuries. He graduated from flight school at Corpus Christi in May 1960. He joined squadron VA-42
at Naval Air Station Oceana
in Virginia for five months of further training on the Skyraider.
Starting in November 1960, McCain flew Skyraiders with the VA-65 "World Famous Fighting Tigers" squadron on the aircraft carriers and . The carriers were based at Naval Station Norfolk
and cruised in the Caribbean and in several deployments to the Mediterranean. His aviation skills improved, but around December 1961 he collided with power lines while recklessly flying too low over southern Spain. The area suffered a power outage
, but McCain was able to return his damaged Skyraider to Intrepid.
Onboard for Enterprises maiden voyage in January 1962, McCain gained visibility with the captain and shipboard publicity that fellow sailors and aviators attributed to his famous last name. McCain was made a lieutenant
in June 1962, and was on alert duty on Enterprise when it helped enforce the naval quarantine of Cuba during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
. In November 1963, he was rotated back to shore duty, serving nine months on the staff of the Naval Air Basic Training Command at Pensacola. In September 1964, he became a flight instructor
with the VT-7 training squadron at Naval Air Station Meridian
in Mississippi, where McCain Field had been named for his grandfather.
During the 1964 stint at Pensacola, McCain began a relationship with Carol Shepp
, a successful swimwear and runway model originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
. They had known each other at the Naval Academy and she had married and then divorced one of his classmates. McCain told her he wanted to do something important with his life, so he would be recorded in history. On July 3, 1965, McCain married Shepp in Philadelphia. She already had two children, Douglas and Andrew, born in 1959 and 1962 respectively; he adopted them in 1966. Carol and he then had a daughter named Sidney in September 1966.
In July 1965, McCain appeared as a contestant on the quiz show
Jeopardy!
(during the Fleming
era), winning one game and losing the next.
In November 1965, he had his third accident when apparent engine failure in his T-2 Buckeye
trainer jet over the Eastern Shore of Virginia
led to his ejecting safely before his plane crashed. While at Meridian, McCain requested a combat assignment. In October 1966, he was slated for upcoming Vietnam War
duty, and so reported to the VA-44 Replacement Air Group squadron at Naval Air Station Cecil Field
in Florida for training on the A-4 Skyhawk
, a single-seat jet attack aircraft. There McCain was seen as a good pilot, albeit one who tended to "push the envelope
" in his flying. Promoted to lieutenant commander
in January 1967, McCain joined the aircraft carrier by May 1967, flying Skyhawks with the VA-46 "Clansmen"
squadron. Forrestal conducted training exercises in the Atlantic throughout the spring, then set sail for the Pacific in June. By this time, Jack McCain had risen in the ranks, making rear admiral
in 1958 and vice admiral
in 1963; in May 1967, he was promoted to four-star admiral, and became Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe
, stationed in London.
in the Gulf of Tonkin
and joined Operation Rolling Thunder
, the 1965–1968 air interdiction
and strategic bombing
campaign against North Vietnam
. The alpha strikes
flown from Forrestal were against specific, pre-selected targets such as arms depots, factories, and bridges. They were quite dangerous, due to the strength of the North Vietnamese air defenses
, which used Soviet
-designed and -supplied surface-to-air missile
s, anti-aircraft artillery, and MiG
jet interceptors. McCain's first five attack missions over North Vietnam went without incident, and while still unconcerned with minor Navy regulations, McCain had garnered the reputation of a serious aviator. McCain and his fellow pilots were frustrated by the micromanagement of Rolling Thunder from Washington; he later wrote, "The target list was so restricted that we had to go back and hit the same targets over and over again... Most of our pilots flying the missions believed that our targets were virtually worthless. In all candor, we thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots who didn't have the least notion of what it took to win the war."
McCain was almost killed on board Forrestal on July 29, 1967. While the air wing
was preparing to launch attacks, a Zuni rocket
from an F-4 Phantom
accidentally fired across the carrier's deck. The rocket struck either McCain's A-4E Skyhawk or one near it. The impact ruptured the Skyhawk's fuel tank, which ignited the fuel and knocked two bombs loose. McCain later said, "I thought my aircraft exploded. Flames were everywhere." McCain escaped from his jet by climbing out the cockpit, working himself to the nose of the jet, and jumping off its refueling probe onto the burning deck. His flight suit caught on fire as he rolled through the flames, but he was able to put it out. He went to help another pilot trying to escape the fire when the first bomb exploded; McCain was thrown backwards ten feet (three meters) and suffered minor wounds when struck in the legs and chest by fragments. McCain helped crewmen throw unexploded bombs overboard off the hangar deck elevator, then went to Forrestals ready room
and with other pilots watched the ensuing fire
and the fire-fighting efforts on the room's closed-circuit television
. The fire killed 134 sailors, injured scores of others, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and took 24 hours to control. In Saigon a day after the conflagration, McCain praised the heroism of enlisted men who gave their lives trying to save the pilots on deck, and told New York Times reporter R. W. Apple, Jr.
, "It's a difficult thing to say. But now that I've seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I'm not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam." But such a change of course was unlikely; as McCain added, "I always wanted to be in the Navy. I was born into it and I never really considered another profession. But I always had trouble with the regimentation."
As Forrestal headed to port for repairs, McCain volunteered to join the undermanned VA-163 "Saints"
squadron on board the . This carrier had earlier endured its own deck fire disaster and its squadrons had suffered some of the heaviest losses during Rolling Thunder. The Saints had a reputation for aggressive, daring attacks, but paid the price: in 1967, one-third of their pilots were killed or captured, and all of their original fifteen A-4s had been destroyed. After taking some leave in Europe and back home in Orange Park, Florida
, McCain joined Oriskany on September 30, 1967, for a tour he expected would finish early the next summer. He volunteered to fly the squadron's most dangerous missions right away, rather than work his way up to them. During October 1967, the pilots operated in constant twelve-hour on, twelve-hour off shifts. McCain would be awarded a Navy Commendation Medal for leading his air section through heavy enemy fire during an October 18 raid on the Lac Trai shipyard in Haiphong
. On October 25, McCain successfully attacked the Phuc Yen
airfield north of Hanoi
through a barrage of anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile fire, which would garner him the Bronze Star
. Air defenses around Hanoi were then the strongest they would be during the entire war.
in central Hanoi
that previously had almost always been off-limits to U.S. raids due to the possibility of collateral damage
. Arriving just before noon, McCain dove from 9,000 to 4,000 feet on his approach; as he neared the target, warning systems in McCain's A-4E Skyhawk alerted him that he was being tracked by enemy fire-control radar
. Like other U.S. pilots, he would not consider breaking off a bombing run, and he held his dive until he released his bombs at about 3,500 feet (1,000 m). As he started to pull up, the Skyhawk's wing was blown off by a Soviet-made SA-2
anti-aircraft missile fired by the North Vietnamese Air Defense Command's 61st Battalion, commanded by Captain Nguyen Lan and with fire control officer Lieutenant Nguyen Xuan Dai. (McCain was later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross
for this day, while Nguyen Xuan Dai was awarded the title Hero of the People's Armed Forces. Decades later, Soviet Army
Lieutenant Yuri Trushechkin claimed that he had been the missile guidance officer who had shot McCain down. In any case, the raid was a failure, as the power plant was not damaged and three of the Navy planes were shot down.)
McCain's plane went into a vertical inverted spin
. Bailing out upside down at high speed, the force of the ejection fractured McCain's right arm in three places, his left arm, and his right leg at the knee, and knocked him unconscious. McCain nearly drowned after parachuting into Trúc Bạch Lake in Hanoi; the weight of his equipment was pulling him down, and as he regained consciousness, he could not use his arms. Eventually, he was able to inflate his life vest using his teeth. Several Vietnamese, possibly led by Department of Industry clerk Mai Van On, pulled him ashore. A mob gathered around, spat on him, kicked him, and stripped him of his clothes; his left shoulder was crushed with the butt of a rifle and he was bayoneted in his left foot and abdominal area. He was then transported to Hanoi's main Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by American POWs.
McCain reached Hoa Lo in as bad a physical condition as any prisoner during the war. His captors refused to give him medical care unless he gave them military information; they beat and interrogated him, but McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth (the only information he was required to provide under the Geneva Conventions
and permitted to give under the U.S. Code of Conduct). Soon thinking he was near death, McCain said he would give them more information if taken to the hospital, hoping he could then put his interrogators off once he was treated. A prison doctor came and said it was too late, as McCain was about to die anyway. Only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral did they give him medical care, calling him "the crown prince". Two days after McCain's plane went down, that event and his status as a POW made the front pages of The New York Times
and The Washington Post
. Interrogation and beatings resumed in the hospital; McCain gave the North Vietnamese his ship's name, squadron's name, and the attack's intended target. This information, along with personal details of McCain's life and purported statements by McCain about the war's progress, would appear over the next two weeks in the North Vietnamese official newspaper Nhân Dân
as well as in dispatches from outlets such as the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina
. Disclosing the military information was in violation of the Code of Conduct, which McCain later wrote he regretted, although he saw the information as being of no practical use to the North Vietnamese. Further coerced to give future targets, he named cities that had already been bombed, and responding to demands for the names of his squadron's members, he supplied instead the names of the Green Bay Packers
' offensive line.
McCain spent six weeks in the hospital, receiving marginal care in a dirty, wet environment. A prolonged attempt to set the fractures on his right arm, done without anesthetic, was unsuccessful; he received an operation on his broken leg but no treatment for his broken left arm. He was temporarily taken to a clean room and interviewed by a French journalist, François Chalais
, whose report was carried on the French television program Panorama in January 1968 and later in the U.S. on the CBS Evening News
. The film footage of McCain lying in the bed, in a cast, smoking cigarettes and speaking haltingly, would become the most well-known images of McCain's imprisonment. McCain was observed by a variety of North Vietnamese, including renowned Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Tuân and Defense Minister and Army commander-in-chief General Vo Nguyen Giap
. Many of the North Vietnamese observers assumed that McCain must be part of America's political-military-economic elite. Now having lost fifty pounds (twenty-three kilograms), in a chest cast, covered in grime and eyes full of fever, and with his hair turned white, in early December 1967 McCain was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on the outskirts of Hanoi nicknamed "the Plantation". He was placed in a cell with George "Bud" Day
, a badly injured and tortured Air Force
pilot (later awarded the Medal of Honor
) and Norris Overly, another Air Force pilot; they did not expect McCain to live another week. Overly, and subsequently Day, nursed McCain and kept him alive; Day later remembered that McCain had "a fantastic will to live".
, where he remained for two years. Unknown to the POWs, in April 1968, Jack McCain was named Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC)
effective in July, stationed in Honolulu and commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater. In mid-June, Major Bai, commander of the North Vietnamese prison camp system, offered McCain a chance to return home early. The North Vietnamese wanted to score a worldwide propaganda coup by appearing merciful, and also wanted to show other POWs that members of the elite like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially. McCain turned down the offer of release, due to the POWs' "first in, first out" interpretation of the U.S. Code of Conduct: he would only accept the offer if every man captured before him was released as well. McCain's refusal to be released was remarked upon by North Vietnamese senior negotiator Le Duc Tho
to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman, during the ongoing Paris Peace Talks. Enraged by his declining of the offer, Bai and his assistant told McCain that things would get very bad for him.
In late August 1968, a program of vigorous torture methods began on McCain. The North Vietnamese used rope bindings to put him into prolonged, painful positions and severely beat him every two hours, all while he was suffering from dysentery. His right leg was reinjured, his ribs were cracked, some teeth were broken at the gumline, and his left arm was re-fractured. Lying in his own waste, his spirit was broken; the beginnings of a suicide attempt were stopped by guards. After four days of this, McCain signed and taped an anti-American propaganda "confession" that said, in part, "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died, and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors." He used stilted Communist jargon and ungrammatical language to signal that the statement was forced. McCain was haunted then and since with the belief that he had dishonored his country, his family, his comrades and himself by his statement, but as he later wrote, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine." Two weeks later his captors tried to force him to sign a second statement; his will to resist restored, he refused. He sometimes received two to three beatings per week because of his continued resistance; the sustained mistreatment went on for over a year. His refusals to cooperate, laced with loud obscenities directed towards his guards, were often heard by other POWs. His boxing experience from his Naval Academy days helped him withstand the battering, and the North Vietnamese did not break him again.
Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions" and propaganda statements. Many, especially among those who had been captured earlier and imprisoned longer, endured even worse treatment than McCain. Under extreme duress, virtually all the POWs eventually yielded something to their captors. There were momentary exceptions: on one occasion, a guard surreptitiously loosened McCain's painful rope bindings for a night; when, months later, the guard later saw McCain on Christmas Day, he stood next to McCain and silently drew a cross
in the dirt with his foot. In October 1968, McCain's isolation was partly relieved when Ernest C. Brace
was placed in the cell next to him; he taught Brace the tap code the prisoners used to communicate. On Christmas Eve 1968, a church service for the POWs was staged for photographers and film cameras; McCain defied North Vietnamese instructions to be quiet, speaking out details of his treatment then shouting "Fu-u-u-u-ck you, you son of a bitch!" and giving the finger whenever a camera was pointed at him. McCain refused to meet with various anti-Vietnam War peace groups
coming to Hanoi, such as those led by David Dellinger
, Tom Hayden
, and Rennie Davis
, not wanting to give either them or the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory based on his connection to his father. McCain was still badly hobbled by his injuries, earning the nickname "Crip" among the other POWs, but despite his physical condition, continued beatings and isolation, he was one of the key players in the Plantation's resistance efforts.
In May 1969, U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird began publicly questioning North Vietnamese treatment of U.S. prisoners. On June 5, 1969, a United Press International
report described a Radio Hanoi
broadcast that denied any such mistreatment. The broadcast used excerpts from McCain's forced "confession" of a year before, including a statement where he said he had bombed "cities, towns and villages" and had received "very good medical treatment" as a prisoner. In late 1969, treatment of McCain and the other POWs suddenly improved. North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh
had died the previous month, possibly causing a change in policy towards POWs. Also, a badly beaten and weakened POW who had been released that summer disclosed to the world press the conditions to which they were being subjected, and the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, which included McCain's brother Joe
, heightened awareness of the POWs' plight. In December 1969, McCain was transferred back to the Hoa Lo "Hanoi Hilton"; his solitary confinement ended in March 1970. When the prisoners talked about what they wanted to do once they got out, McCain said he wanted to become President. McCain consented to a January 1970 interview outside Hoa Lo with Spanish-born, Cuban psychologist Fernando Barral, that was published in the official Cuban newspaper Granma
. McCain talked about his life and expressed no remorse for his bombing North Vietnam, and Barral proclaimed him "an insensitive individual without human depth." The POWs issued an edict forbidding any further such interviews, and despite pressure from his captors, McCain subsequently refused to see any anti-war groups or journalists sympathetic to the North Vietnamese regime.
serving closest to the DMZ
; he would stand alone and look north, to be as close to his son as he could get. By 1971, some 30–50 percent of the POWs had become disillusioned about the war, both because of the apparent lack of military progress and what they heard of the growing anti-war movement in the U.S., and some of them were less reluctant to make propaganda statements for the North Vietnamese. McCain was not among them: he participated in a defiant church service and led an effort to write letters home that only portrayed the camp in a negative light, and as a result spent much of the year in a camp reserved for "bad attitude" cases.
Back at the "Hanoi Hilton" from November 1971 onward, McCain and the other POWs cheered the resumed bombing of the north starting in April 1972
, whose targets included the Hanoi area and whose daily orders were issued by Jack McCain, knowing his son was in the vicinity. Jack McCain's tour as CINCPAC ended in September 1972, despite his desire to have it extended so he could see the war to its conclusion. The old-time POWs cheered even more during the intense "Christmas Bombing" campaign
of December 1972, when Hanoi was subjected for the first time to repeated B-52 Stratofortress
raids. Although its explosions lit the night sky and shook the walls of the camp, scaring some of the newer POWs, most saw it as a forceful measure to compel North Vietnam to finally come to terms.
The Paris Peace Accords
were signed on January 27, 1973, ending direct U.S. involvement in the war, but the Operation Homecoming
arrangements for the 591 American POWs took longer. McCain was finally released from captivity on March 14, 1973, being taken by bus to Gia Lam Airport
, transferred to U.S. custody, and flown by C-141
to Clark Air Base
in the Philippines
.
Altogether, McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years, nearly five of them after his refusal to accept the out-of-sequence repatriation offer. His wartime injuries left him permanently incapable of raising either arm more than 80 degrees. For his actions as a POW, McCain was awarded the Silver Star
, the Legion of Merit
, three more instances of the Bronze Star
, another instance of the Navy Commendation Medal, and the Purple Heart
. He also gained an appreciation, from experiencing the mutual help and organized resistance of the POWs, that his earlier individualism needed to be tempered by a belief in causes greater than self-interest.
Upon his return to the United States a few days later, McCain was reunited with his wife Carol and his family. She had suffered her own crippling, near-death ordeal during his captivity, due to an automobile accident in December 1969 that left her hospitalized for six months and facing twenty-three operations and ongoing physical therapy. Businessman and POW advocate Ross Perot
had paid for her medical care. By the time McCain saw her, she was four inches (ten centimeters) shorter, on crutches, and substantially heavier. As a returned POW, McCain became a celebrity of sorts: The New York Times
ran a story and front-page photo of him getting off the plane at Clark Air Base
in the Philippines
; he authored a thirteen-page cover story describing his ordeal and his support for the Nixon administration's handling of the war in U.S. News & World Report
; he participated in parades in Orange Park and elsewhere and made personal appearances before groups, where he showed strong speaking skills; he was given the key to the city of Jacksonville, Florida
; and a photograph of him on crutches shaking the hand of President Richard Nixon
at a White House reception for returning POWs became iconic. The McCains became frequent guests of honor at dinners hosted by Governor of California
Ronald Reagan
and his wife Nancy Reagan
, and John McCain made a strong impression speaking at a large prayer breakfast hosted by the governor. McCain had admired Ronald Reagan while in captivity and afterwards, believing him a man who saw honor in Vietnam service and a potential leader would not lead the nation into a war it was unwilling to win.
McCain underwent three operations and other treatment for his injuries, spending three months at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Jacksonville. Psychological tests, given to all the returning POWs, showed that McCain had "adjusted exceptionally well to repatriation" and had "an ambitious, striving, successful pattern of adjustment". McCain told examiners that he withstood his ordeal by having "Faith in country, United States Navy, family, and God". Unlike many veterans, McCain did not experience flashbacks or nightmares of his Vietnam experience, although due to the association with prison guards, the sound of keys rattling would cause him to "tense up".
McCain was promoted to commander
effective July 1973 and attended the National War College
in Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. during the 1973–1974 academic year. There he intensively studied the history of Vietnam and the French and American wars there
, and wrote "The Code of Conduct and the Vietnam Prisoners of War
", a long paper on the Vietnam POW experience as a test of the U.S. Code of Conduct. By the time he graduated, he concluded that mistakes by American political and military leaders had doomed the war effort. He accepted the right of the anti-war movement in the U.S. to have exercised their freedom to protest, and he adopted a live-and-let-live attitude towards those who had evaded the draft. Nor did the vast changes in American social mores that had taken place during his absence bother him, as it did many other former POWs. McCain returned to Saigon in November 1974; he and a couple of other former POWs received the National Order of Vietnam
, that country's highest honor. He also spoke at the South Vietnamese war college, five months before Saigon fell
. McCain resolved not to become a "professional POW" but to move forward and rebuild his life. Few thought McCain could fly again, but he was determined to try, and during this time he engaged in nine months of grueling, painful physical therapy
, especially to get his knees to bend again.
training squadron located at Naval Air Station Cecil Field
in Jacksonville and the largest aviation squadron in the Navy. He became its executive officer
in 1975, and on July 1, 1976, he was made VA-174's commanding officer
. This last assignment was controversial, as he did not have the required experience of having commanded a smaller squadron first (something that he now had too high a rank to do). While some senior officers resented McCain's presence as favoritism due to his father, junior officers rallied to him and helped him qualify for A-7 carrier landings.
As commanding officer, McCain relied upon a relatively unorthodox leadership style based upon the force of his personality. He removed personnel he thought ineffective, and sought to improve morale and productivity by establishing an informal rapport with enlisted men. Dealing with limited post-Vietnam defense budgets and parts shortages, he was forceful in demanding that respect be given the female officers just beginning to arrive into the unit. McCain's leadership abilities were credited with improving the unit's aircraft readiness; for the first time, all fifty of its aircraft were able to fly. Although some operational metrics declined during the period, the pilot safety improved to the point of having zero accidents. The squadron was awarded its first-ever Meritorious Unit Commendation
, while McCain received a Meritorious Service Medal
. McCain later stated that being commanding officer of VA-174 was the most rewarding assignment of his naval career. When his stint ended in July 1977, the change of command ceremony was attended by his father and the rest of his family, as well as some of his fellow POWs; speaker Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr.
said that John had joined Jack and Slew McCain in a place of honor in Navy tradition, a tribute that deeply moved McCain.
During their time in Jacksonville, the McCains' marriage began to falter. McCain had extramarital affairs; he was seen with other women in social settings and developed a reputation among his colleagues for womanizing. Some of McCain's activity with other women occurred when he was off-duty after routine flights to Marine Corps Air Station Yuma
and Naval Air Facility El Centro
. McCain later said, "My marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine." His wife Carol later stated that the failure was not due to her accident or Vietnam and that "I attribute [the breakup of our marriage] more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else." John McCain's biographer, Robert Timberg, believes that "Vietnam did play a part, perhaps not the major part, but more than a walk-on." According to John McCain, "I had changed, she had changed. People who have been apart that much change."
incumbent Charles E. Bennett
. He did work so hard for Ronald Reagan
's 1976 Republican primary campaign
that his base commander reprimanded him for being too politically active for his naval position.
As his tenure with VA-174 was ending, McCain was assigned to a low-profile desk job within the Naval Air Systems Command
. Chief of Naval Operations
Admiral James L. Holloway III
thought this assignment a waste of McCain's social talents, and instead in July 1977 McCain was appointed to the Senate Liaison Office within the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs
(an assignment Jack McCain had once held). The office's role mostly consisted of providing constituent
service and acting as a facilitator among legislators, the Department of Defense, and lobbyists. McCain later said the liaison job represented "[my] real entry into the world of politics and the beginning of my second career as a public servant". McCain's lively personality and knowledge of military matters made his post in the Russell Senate Office Building
a popular gathering spot for senators and staff. He also frequently escorted congressional delegations on overseas trips, where he arranged entertaining side escapades. McCain was influenced by senators of both parties, and formed an especially strong bond with John Tower
of Texas, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. During 1978 and 1979, McCain played a key behind-the-scenes role in gaining congressional funding for a new supercarrier
against the wishes of the Carter administration and Navy Secretary W. Graham Claytor Jr.
In August 1979, McCain was promoted to captain, and became Director of the Senate Liaison Office. During McCain's time there, the Senate Liaison Office enjoyed one of its few periods of high influence.
McCain and his wife Carol had been briefly separated soon after returning to Washington, but then reunited and remained married. In April 1979, while attending a military reception for senators in Hawaii, McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley, eighteen years his junior, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona
and the daughter of James Willis Hensley, a wealthy Anheuser-Busch
beer distributor, and Marguerite "Smitty" Hensley. They began dating, travelling between Arizona and Washington to see each other, and John McCain urged his wife Carol to accept a divorce. The McCains stopped cohabiting in January 1980, and John McCain filed for divorce in February, which Carol McCain accepted at that time. After she did not respond to court summonses, the uncontested divorce became official in Fort Walton Beach, Florida
, on April 2, 1980. McCain gave Carol a settlement that included full custody of their children, alimony, child support including college tuition, houses in Virginia and Florida, and lifelong financial support for her ongoing medical treatments resulting from the 1969 automobile accident; they would remain on good terms. McCain and Hensley were married on May 17, 1980 in Phoenix, with Senators William Cohen
and Gary Hart
as best man and groomsman. McCain's children were upset with him and did not attend the wedding, but after several years they reconciled with him and Cindy. Carol McCain became a personal assistant to Nancy Reagan
and later Director of the White House Visitors Office
. The Reagans were stunned by the divorce; Nancy Reagan's relationship with John McCain turned cold for a while following it, but eventually the two renewed their friendship. The same happened with most of McCain's other friends, who were eventually won over by the force of his personality and his frequent expressions of guilt over what had happened.
Around the end of 1980, McCain decided to retire from the Navy. He had not been given a major sea command, and his physical condition had deteriorated, causing him to fail the flight physical required for any carrier command position (in addition to his limited arm movement, certain weather would always cause him to walk with a limp). McCain thought he might make rear admiral
, but probably not vice admiral
, and never become a four-star admiral
as his grandfather and father had been. McCain later wrote that he did not anguish over his decision, although it pained his mother, who thought congressional careers paled in comparison to top naval ones. He was excited by the idea of being a member of Congress and was soon recruiting a campaign manager that Cohen knew, for a planned run at a House seat from Arizona. In early 1981, Secretary of the Navy
John F. Lehman, who did not want to see McCain leave the liaison post, told McCain that he was still on the path to be selected for one-star rear admiral. McCain told Lehman that he was leaving the Navy and that he could "do more good" in Congress.
McCain retired with an effective date of April 1, 1981, the rank of captain, and a disability pension
due to his wartime injuries. For his service in the Senate liaison office, McCain was awarded a second instance of the Legion of Merit
. Jack McCain died on March 22, 1981. On March 27, 1981, McCain attended his father's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery
, wearing his uniform for the last time before signing his discharge papers, and later that day flew to Phoenix with his wife Cindy to begin his new life.
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
spans the first forty-five years of his life (1936–1981). McCain's father
John S. McCain, Jr.
John Sidney "Jack" McCain Jr. was a United States Navy admiral, who served in conflicts from the 1940s through the 1970s, including as the Commander, United States Pacific Command....
and grandfather
John S. McCain, Sr.
John Sidney "Slew" McCain Sr. was a U.S. Navy admiral. He held several command assignments during the Pacific campaign of World War II....
were admirals
Admiral (United States)
In the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard and the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, admiral is a four-star flag officer rank, with the pay grade of O-10. Admiral ranks above vice admiral and below Fleet Admiral in the Navy; the Coast Guard and the Public Health...
in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
. McCain was born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone
Panama Canal Zone
The Panama Canal Zone was a unorganized U.S. territory located within the Republic of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending 5 miles on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of...
, and attended many schools growing up as his family moved among naval facilities. McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy
United States Naval Academy
The United States Naval Academy is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States...
in 1958. He married the former Carol Shepp
Carol McCain
Carol Shepp McCain is a former model, director of the White House Visitors Office, and event planner. She was the first wife of United States Senator and two-time presidential candidate John McCain.-Early life and first marriage:...
in 1965; he adopted two children from her previous marriage and they had another child together.
As a naval aviator
United States Naval Aviator
A United States Naval Aviator is a qualified pilot in the United States Navy, Marine Corps or Coast Guard.-Naming Conventions:Most Naval Aviators are Unrestricted Line Officers; however, a small number of Limited Duty Officers and Chief Warrant Officers are also trained as Naval Aviators.Until 1981...
, McCain flew attack aircraft from carriers
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
. During the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, he narrowly escaped death in the 1967 Forrestal fire
1967 USS Forrestal fire
The 1967 USS Forrestal fire was a devastating fire and series of chain-reaction explosions on 29 July 1967 that killed 134 sailors and injured 161 on the aircraft carrier , after an unusual electrical anomaly discharged a Zuni rocket on the flight deck...
. On his twenty-third bombing mission in October 1967, he was shot down over Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
and badly injured. He subsequently endured five and a half years as a prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
, including periods of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
. In 1968, he refused a North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
ese offer of early release, because it would have meant leaving before other prisoners who had been held longer. He was released in 1973 after the Paris Peace Accords
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War, ended direct U.S. military involvement, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam...
.
Upon his return, McCain studied at the National War College
National War College
The National War College of the United States is a school in the National Defense University. It is housed in Roosevelt Hall on Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., the third-oldest Army post still active. It was officially established on July 1, 1946, as an upgraded replacement for the...
, commanded a large training squadron in Florida, and was appointed the Navy liaison to the U.S. Senate. He divorced his wife Carol in 1980 and married the former Cindy Hensley
Cindy Hensley McCain
Cindy Lou Hensley McCain is an American businesswoman, and philanthropist, and the wife of United States Senator and 2000 and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona....
shortly thereafter. He retired from the Navy in 1981 as a captain.
Family heritage
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
hospital at Coco Solo Naval Air Station
Coco Solo
Coco Solo was a United States Navy submarine base established in 1918 on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Panama Canal Zone, near Colón, Panama....
in Panama Canal Zone
Panama Canal Zone
The Panama Canal Zone was a unorganized U.S. territory located within the Republic of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending 5 miles on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of...
, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, to Navy officer John S. "Jack" McCain, Jr.
John S. McCain, Jr.
John Sidney "Jack" McCain Jr. was a United States Navy admiral, who served in conflicts from the 1940s through the 1970s, including as the Commander, United States Pacific Command....
(1911–1981) and Roberta (Wright) McCain
Roberta McCain
Roberta Wright McCain is the widow of Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. and mother of the Republican Arizona Senator and two-time Presidential candidate John S. McCain III.-Background:...
(1912– ). McCain is of Scots-Irish and English
English American
English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....
ancestry.
John McCain's grandparents were natives of Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, and Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, and much of his ancestry was Southern
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
on both his mother's side and father's side. The McCain family's patrilineal
Patrilineality
Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well....
ancestral home is in Mississippi's Carroll County
Carroll County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 10,769 people, 4,071 households, and 3,069 families residing in the county. The population density was 17 people per square mile . There were 4,888 housing units at an average density of 8 per square mile...
; they owned and ran a 2000 acres (8.1 km²) plantation in Teoc
Teoc, Mississippi
Teoc is an unincorporated community in Carroll County, Mississippi and is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area approximately northeast of Greenwood on Teoc Road along Teoc Creek.....
from 1848 until 1952. The plantation had slaves before the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
– some of whose descendants share the surname and call themselves the "black McCains
Black McCains
The family known in the media as the "black McCains" are the living descendants of Isom McCain and Leddie McCain, African-American slaves owned in Teoc, Mississippi by William Alexander McCain, a cotton plantation owner who was the great-great-grandfather of Senator John McCain...
" – and sharecroppers afterward; influential blues guitarist Mississippi John Hurt
Mississippi John Hurt
John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...
was born on the plantation to one of the latter.
The McCain family tree has a long heritage of American military service, with ancestors fighting as soldiers in the Indian Wars
Indian Wars
American Indian Wars is the name used in the United States to describe a series of conflicts between American settlers or the federal government and the native peoples of North America before and after the American Revolutionary War. The wars resulted from the arrival of European colonizers who...
, American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
(due to which McCain maintains a membership with the Sons of the American Revolution
Sons of the American Revolution
The National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution is a Louisville, Kentucky-based fraternal organization in the United States...
), War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, for the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
in the American Civil War, and in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The tree also includes roguish behavior and economic success. John McCain's maternal grandfather, Archibald Wright (1875–1971), was a Mississippi native who migrated to Muskogee, Oklahoma
Muskogee, Oklahoma
Muskogee is a city in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, United States. It is the county seat of Muskogee County, and home to Bacone College. The population was 38,310 at the 2000 census, making it the eleventh-largest city in Oklahoma....
in his twenties, ran afoul of the law with several gambling and bootlegging charges, then became a strong-willed wildcatter
Wildcatter
A wildcatter is an American term for a person who drills wildcat wells, which are oil wells drilled in areas not known to be oil fields. A wildcatter notable for his success was Texan oil tycoon Glenn McCarthy....
who prospered on land deals during the early statehood years
History of Oklahoma
The history of Oklahoma refers to the history of the state of Oklahoma and the land that the state now occupies. Areas of Oklahoma east of its panhandle were acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, while the Panhandle was not acquired until the U.S...
and struck oil in the Southwest. Rich by age forty, he never worked again and became a stay-at-home father. Raising a family in Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
and Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, he instilled in Roberta and her twin sister Rowena a lifelong habit of travel and adventure. There is also independent-minded behavior in the family tree: Jack McCain and Roberta Wright eloped and married in a bar in Tijuana, Mexico, when Archibald Wright's wife Myrtle objected to Roberta's association with a sailor.
McCain's father and paternal grandfather eventually became Navy admirals
Admiral (United States)
In the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard and the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, admiral is a four-star flag officer rank, with the pay grade of O-10. Admiral ranks above vice admiral and below Fleet Admiral in the Navy; the Coast Guard and the Public Health...
, and were the first father-son pair to achieve four-star admiral rank. His grandfather, Admiral John S. "Slew" McCain, Sr.
John S. McCain, Sr.
John Sidney "Slew" McCain Sr. was a U.S. Navy admiral. He held several command assignments during the Pacific campaign of World War II....
(1884–1945), was a pioneer of aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
operations who in 1942 commanded all land-based air operations in support of the Guadalcanal campaign
Guadalcanal campaign
The Guadalcanal Campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by Allied forces, was a military campaign fought between August 7, 1942 and February 9, 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre of World War II...
, and who ultimately in 1944–1945 aggressively led the Fast Carrier Task Force
Fast Carrier Task Force
The Fast Carrier Task Force was the main striking force of the United States Navy in the Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II.The Fast Carrier Task Force was known under two designations. The Navy made use of two sets of upper command structures for planning the upcoming operations...
in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II
Pacific Ocean theater of World War II
The Pacific Ocean theatre was one of four major naval theatres of war of World War II, which pitted the forces of Japan against those of the United States, the British Commonwealth, the Netherlands and France....
. His operations off the Philippines and Okinawa
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945...
, and air strikes against Formosa
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
and the Japanese home islands, caused tremendous destruction of Japanese naval and air forces in the closing period of the war. His death four days after the Japanese surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay
Japanese Instrument of Surrender
The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was the written agreement that enabled the Surrender of Japan, marking the end of World War II. It was signed by representatives from the Empire of Japan, the United States of America, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist...
was front page news. Jack McCain was a submarine commander in several theaters of operation in World War II and was decorated with both the Silver Star
Silver Star
The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....
and Bronze Star
Bronze Star Medal
The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. As a medal it is awarded for merit, and with the "V" for valor device it is awarded for heroism. It is the fourth-highest combat award of the...
.
Early life
Joe McCain
Joseph Pinckney "Joe" McCain II is a stage actor, newspaper reporter, and brother of U.S. Senator and two-time presidential candidate John McCain.-Early life and education:...
(born 1942), followed his father to New London, Connecticut
New London, Connecticut
New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States.It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, southeastern Connecticut....
, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and other stations in the Pacific Ocean. Summer vacations were sometimes spent at the family's Teoc plantation, but McCain always felt his heritage was military, not Southern. McCain attended whatever naval base school was available, often to the detriment of his education, as schools were sometimes substandard and their curricula often erratic. After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
, his father was absent for long stretches. His formal education was supplemented by the efforts of his mother, who took advantage of the family's many long-distance travels to expose him to historical and cultural sites. He later wrote, "She taught me to find so much pleasure in life that misfortune could not rob me of the joy of living." A Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, she also made sure that he followed current events, although his parents avoided outward partisan affiliations due to his father's military career.
After World War II ended, his father stayed in the Navy, sometimes working political liaison posts. The family settled in Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...
, and McCain attended the educationally stronger St. Stephen's School
St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School
St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School is an independent Episcopal coed private college preparatory school in Alexandria, Virginia. The school was created from the 1991 merger of St. Agnes School with St. Stephen's School . The school consists of three campuses within a 1.5 mile radius...
in Alexandria
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
from 1946 to 1949. To his family, McCain had long been quiet, dependable, and courteous, while at St. Stephen's he began to develop an unruly, defiant streak. Another two years were then spent following his father to naval stations; altogether he attended about twenty schools during his youth. He was frequently disciplined in school for fighting. He later wrote, "The repeated farewells to friends rank among the saddest regrets of a childhood constantly disrupted by the demands of my father's career... At each new school I arrived eager to make, by means of my insolent attitude, new friends to compensate for the loss of others. At each new school I grew more determined to assert my crude individualism. At each new school I became a more unrepentant pain in the neck."
In 1951, McCain enrolled at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, an academically superior, all-male private boarding school with a rigorous honor code
Honor code
An honour code or honour system is a set of rules or principles governing a community based on a set of rules or ideals that define what constitutes honorable behavior within that community. The use of an honor code depends on the idea that people can be trusted to act honorably...
, tradition of hazing
Hazing
Hazing is a term used to describe various ritual and other activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group....
, and spartan living environment. Most of the children there were sons of wealthy Southerners, from whom McCain got a glimpse of life and career aspirations outside the Navy culture. Nicknamed "Punk" and "McNasty" due to his combative, fiery disposition, McCain enjoyed and cultivated that tough guy image; he also made a few friends. McCain earned two varsity letter
Varsity letter
A varsity letter is an award earned in the United States for excellence in school activities. A varsity letter signifies that its winner was a qualified varsity team member, awarded after a certain standard was met.- Description :...
s in wrestling
Scholastic wrestling
Scholastic wrestling, sometimes known in the United States as Folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling practised at the high school and middle school levels in the United States. This wrestling style is essentially Collegiate wrestling with some slight modifications. It is currently...
, excelling in the lighter weight classes
Wrestling weight classes
-For men's freestyle and Greco-Roman:Currently, men's freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling is divided into four main age categories internationally: schoolboys, cadets, juniors, and seniors....
. He also played on the junior varsity
Junior varsity
Primarily in North America, junior varsity or JV players are the members of a team who are not the main players in a competition , usually at the high school and college levels in the United States and Canada. The main players comprise the varsity team...
football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
team and the tennis team, and participated in the student newspaper, yearbook, and drama club. English teacher William Bee Ravenel III
William Bee Ravenel III
William Bee Ravenel III was an educator and a soldier. As head of the English Department at the Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, he was a major influence on the life of Arizona senator and 2008 U.S. presidential candidate John McCain, who called Ravenel "one of the finest men I have...
, who was also his football coach, became a great influence towards his sense of learning, honor, and self-image. With what he later termed an "undistinguished, but acceptable" academic record, McCain graduated from high school in 1954.
Naval Academy
United States Naval Academy
The United States Naval Academy is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States...
in Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...
in June 1954, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He had neither been ordered to go there by his parents nor discussed alternatives; as he later wrote, "I remember simply recognizing my eventual enrollment at the Academy as an immutable fact of life, and accepting it without comment."
Ambivalent about his presence there, McCain chose not to conform to the Academy's rules and some of its traditions. Each year he was given over a hundred demerits – earning him membership in the "Century Club" – for offenses such as shoes not being shined, formation faults, room in disorder, and talking out of place. His father came to the Academy to reprimand him on his behavior a number of times. He hated "plebe year", the trial by ordeal and hazing
Hazing
Hazing is a term used to describe various ritual and other activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group....
of entering midshipmen that would eventually weed out one quarter of the class. He did not take well to those of higher rank arbitrarily wielding power over him – "It was bullshit, and I resented the hell out of it" – and occasionally intervened when he saw it being done to others. At 5-foot 7 inches and 127 pounds (1.70 m and 58 kg), he competed as a lightweight boxer for three years, where he lacked skills but was fearless and "didn't have a reverse gear". In his final year, he managed the battalion boxing team to a brigade championship.
Possessed of a strong intelligence, McCain did well in a few subjects that interested him, such as English literature, history, and government. There was a fixed Bachelor of Science
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
curriculum taken by all midshipmen; McCain's classmates were impressed by his cramming abilities on mathematics, science, and engineering courses and thought his low grades were by inclination and not ability, while McCain would later acknowledge that those courses were a struggle for him. His class rank was further lowered by poor grades for conduct and leadership, which reflected his sloppy appearance, rebellious attitude, and poor relations with his company officer
Company-grade officer
In US military usage, a company-grade officer is a Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, or Captain.In the Army, company-grade officers are typically assigned to a company as a platoon leader or executive officer or as a commander . They may also be assigned as staff officers. They may preside...
. Despite his low standing, he was popular and a leader among his fellow midshipmen, in what biographer Robert Timberg called a "manic, intuitive, highly idiosyncratic way". Good at attracting women, he was famed for organizing off-Yard activities with a group who called themselves "the Bad Bunch"; one classmate said that "being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck." Other midshipmen were annoyed by his behavior. A June 1957 training cruise aboard the destroyer found McCain showing good skills at the conn
Officer of the Deck
Officer of the deck is a position in the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard that confers certain authority and responsibility. The officer of the deck on a ship is the direct representative of the captain, having responsibility for the ship.-Overview:In port, the OOD is stationed on...
, and the destination stop in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
led to a dream-like romance with Brazilian fashion model and ballerina Maria Gracinda that persisted through a Christmastime reunion.
McCain graduated from the Naval Academy in June 1958; he was fifth from the bottom in class rank
Class rank
Class rank is a measure of how a student's performance compares to other students in his or her class. It is commonly also expressed as a percentile. For instance, a student may have a GPA better than 750 of his or her classmates in a graduating class of 800...
, 894th out of 899. Despite his difficulties, McCain later wrote that he never defamed the more compelling traditions of the Academy – courage, resilience, honor, and sacrifice for one's country – and he never wavered in his desire to show his father and family that he was of the same mettle as his naval forebears. Indeed, Slew and Jack McCain had not had sterling records at the Academy themselves, finishing in the bottom third and bottom twentieth respectively. McCain realized later that the Academy had taught him that "to sustain my self-respect for a lifetime it would be necessary for me to have the honor of serving something greater than my self-interest", a lesson that he would need to carry him through a "desperate and uncertain" time a decade later.
Naval training, early assignments, first marriage, and children
McCain was commissioned an ensign. He spent two years as a naval aviatorUnited States Naval Aviator
A United States Naval Aviator is a qualified pilot in the United States Navy, Marine Corps or Coast Guard.-Naming Conventions:Most Naval Aviators are Unrestricted Line Officers; however, a small number of Limited Duty Officers and Chief Warrant Officers are also trained as Naval Aviators.Until 1981...
in training, first at Naval Air Station Pensacola
Naval Air Station Pensacola
Naval Air Station Pensacola or NAS Pensacola , "The Cradle of Naval Aviation", is a United States Navy base located next to Warrington, Florida, a community southwest of the Pensacola city limits...
in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
through September 1959, and then at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi
Naval Air Station Corpus Christi
Naval Air Station Corpus Christi , also known as Truax Field, is a naval base located six miles southeast of the central business district of Corpus Christi, in Nueces County, Texas, USA.-History:...
in Texas, during which time he was promoted to lieutenant, junior grade
Lieutenant, Junior Grade
Lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer rank in the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, United States Merchant Marine USMM, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps, with the pay grade...
. He earned a reputation as a party man, as he drove a Corvette
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car by the Chevrolet division of General Motors that has been produced in six generations. The first model, a convertible, was designed by Harley Earl and introduced at the GM Motorama in 1953 as a concept show car. Myron Scott is credited for naming the car after...
, dated an exotic dancer
Erotic dancing
Erotic dance is a major category or classification of dance forms or dance styles, where the purpose is the stimulation or arousal of erotic or sexual thoughts or actions....
named "Marie the Flame of Florida", spent all his free time on the beach or in a Bachelor Officer Quarters room turned bar and friendly gambling den, and, as he later said, "generally misused my good health and youth". He began as a sub-par flier: he had limited patience for studying aviation manuals, and spent study time reading history books instead. He was not assigned to the elite units flying fighter aircraft
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...
, and instead became a pilot of attack aircraft. During a March 1960 practice run in Texas, he lost track of his altitude and speed, and his single-seat, single-pistoned-engine AD-6 Skyraider crashed into Corpus Christi Bay
Corpus Christi Bay
Corpus Christi Bay is a scenic semi-tropical bay on the Texas coast found in San Patricio and Nueces counties, next to the major city of Corpus Christi. It is separated from the Gulf of Mexico by Mustang Island, and is fed by the Nueces River and Oso Creek from its western and southern extensions,...
and sank to the bottom. Although momentarily knocked unconscious by the impact, he squeezed out of the cockpit and swam ten feet to the surface, escaping without major injuries. He graduated from flight school at Corpus Christi in May 1960. He joined squadron VA-42
VA-42
Attack Squadron 42 was a United States Navy attack squadron based at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia. VA-42 was known as the "Green Pawns" and the "Thunderbolts" Attack Squadron 42 (VA-42) was a United States Navy attack squadron based at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia. VA-42 was known as...
at Naval Air Station Oceana
Naval Air Station Oceana
Naval Air Station Oceana or NAS Oceana is a military airport located in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and is a United States Navy Master Jet Base. It is also known as Apollo Soucek Field, named after Lieutenant Apollo Soucek, a Navy Test Pilot who set the global altitude record in 1930 by flying a...
in Virginia for five months of further training on the Skyraider.
Starting in November 1960, McCain flew Skyraiders with the VA-65 "World Famous Fighting Tigers" squadron on the aircraft carriers and . The carriers were based at Naval Station Norfolk
Naval Station Norfolk
Naval Station Norfolk, in Norfolk, Virginia, is a base of the United States Navy, supporting naval forces in the United States Fleet Forces Command, those operating in the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean...
and cruised in the Caribbean and in several deployments to the Mediterranean. His aviation skills improved, but around December 1961 he collided with power lines while recklessly flying too low over southern Spain. The area suffered a power outage
Power outage
A power outage is a short- or long-term loss of the electric power to an area.There are many causes of power failures in an electricity network...
, but McCain was able to return his damaged Skyraider to Intrepid.
Onboard for Enterprises maiden voyage in January 1962, McCain gained visibility with the captain and shipboard publicity that fellow sailors and aviators attributed to his famous last name. McCain was made a lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
in June 1962, and was on alert duty on Enterprise when it helped enforce the naval quarantine of Cuba during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
. In November 1963, he was rotated back to shore duty, serving nine months on the staff of the Naval Air Basic Training Command at Pensacola. In September 1964, he became a flight instructor
Flight instructor
A flight instructor is a person who teaches others to fly aircraft. Specific privileges granted to holders of a flight instructor qualification vary from country to country, but very generally, a flight instructor serves to enhance or evaluate the knowledge and skill level of an aviator in pursuit...
with the VT-7 training squadron at Naval Air Station Meridian
Naval Air Station Meridian
Naval Air Station Meridian or NAS Meridian is a military airport located 11 miles northeast of Meridian, Mississippi in Lauderdale County and Kemper County, and is one of the Navy's two jet strike pilot training bases .-History:On July 16, 1957, the first shovel of earth was thrown, marking the...
in Mississippi, where McCain Field had been named for his grandfather.
During the 1964 stint at Pensacola, McCain began a relationship with Carol Shepp
Carol McCain
Carol Shepp McCain is a former model, director of the White House Visitors Office, and event planner. She was the first wife of United States Senator and two-time presidential candidate John McCain.-Early life and first marriage:...
, a successful swimwear and runway model originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. They had known each other at the Naval Academy and she had married and then divorced one of his classmates. McCain told her he wanted to do something important with his life, so he would be recorded in history. On July 3, 1965, McCain married Shepp in Philadelphia. She already had two children, Douglas and Andrew, born in 1959 and 1962 respectively; he adopted them in 1966. Carol and he then had a daughter named Sidney in September 1966.
In July 1965, McCain appeared as a contestant on the quiz show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
(during the Fleming
Art Fleming
Art Fleming was an American television host, most notably the original host of the TV game show Jeopardy!.-Early life:...
era), winning one game and losing the next.
T-2 Buckeye
|-See also:-External links:*****...
trainer jet over the Eastern Shore of Virginia
Eastern Shore of Virginia
The Eastern Shore of Virginia consists of two counties on the Atlantic coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The region is part of the Delmarva Peninsula and is separated from the rest of Virginia by the Chesapeake Bay. Its population was 45,553 as of 2010...
led to his ejecting safely before his plane crashed. While at Meridian, McCain requested a combat assignment. In October 1966, he was slated for upcoming Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
duty, and so reported to the VA-44 Replacement Air Group squadron at Naval Air Station Cecil Field
Naval Air Station Cecil Field
Naval Air Station Cecil Field or NAS Cecil Field was a United States Navy base, located in Duval County, Florida. NAS Cecil Field was the largest military base in the Jacksonville, Florida, area....
in Florida for training on the A-4 Skyhawk
A-4 Skyhawk
The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a carrier-capable ground-attack aircraft designed for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. The delta winged, single-engined Skyhawk was designed and produced by Douglas Aircraft Company, and later McDonnell Douglas. It was originally designated the A4D...
, a single-seat jet attack aircraft. There McCain was seen as a good pilot, albeit one who tended to "push the envelope
Flight envelope
In aerodynamics, the flight envelope or performance envelope of an aircraft refers to the capabilities of a design in terms of airspeed and load factor or altitude. The term is somewhat loosely applied, and can also refer to other measurements such as maneuverability...
" in his flying. Promoted to lieutenant commander
Lieutenant commander (United States)
Lieutenant commander is a mid-ranking officer rank in the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps, with the pay grade of O-4 and NATO rank code OF-3...
in January 1967, McCain joined the aircraft carrier by May 1967, flying Skyhawks with the VA-46 "Clansmen"
Attack Squadron 46 (United States Navy)
Attack Squadron 46 was an attack squadron of the United States Navy that was active during the Cold War. VA-46 was deactivated as part of the post-Cold War drawdown of forces on 30 June 1991.-History:...
squadron. Forrestal conducted training exercises in the Atlantic throughout the spring, then set sail for the Pacific in June. By this time, Jack McCain had risen in the ranks, making rear admiral
Rear admiral (United States)
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. The uniformed services of the United States are unique in having two grades of rear admirals.- Rear admiral :...
in 1958 and vice admiral
Vice admiral (United States)
In the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps, and the United States Maritime Service, vice admiral is a three-star flag officer, with the pay grade of...
in 1963; in May 1967, he was promoted to four-star admiral, and became Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe
United States Naval Forces Europe
United States Naval Forces Europe is the United States Navy component of the United States European Command and provides forces for United States African Command....
, stationed in London.
Vietnam operations
On July 25, 1967, Forrestal reached Yankee StationYankee Station
Yankee Station was a point in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam used by the U.S. Navy aircraft carriers of Task Force 77 to launch strikes in the Vietnam War. While its official designation was "Point Yankee," it was universally referred to as Yankee Station...
in the Gulf of Tonkin
Gulf of Tonkin
The Gulf of Tonkin is an arm of the South China Sea, lying off the coast of northeastern Vietnam.-Etymology:The name Tonkin, written "東京" in Hán tự and Đông Kinh in romanised Vietnamese, means "Eastern Capital", and is the former toponym for Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam...
and joined Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained US 2nd Air Division , US Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force aerial bombardment campaign conducted against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 2 March 1965 until 1 November 1968, during the Vietnam War.The four objectives...
, the 1965–1968 air interdiction
Air interdiction
Air interdiction is the use of aircraft to attack tactical ground targets that are not in close proximity to friendly ground forces. It differs from close air support because it does not directly support ground operations and is not closely coordinated with ground units...
and strategic bombing
Strategic bombing
Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating an enemy nation-state by destroying its economic ability and public will to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces...
campaign against North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
. The alpha strikes
Alpha strike (United States Navy)
Alpha strike is a term used by the United States Navy to denote a large air attack by an aircraft carrier air wing, first coined during the Vietnam War. It is the Navy's version of the more widely used term "strike package"....
flown from Forrestal were against specific, pre-selected targets such as arms depots, factories, and bridges. They were quite dangerous, due to the strength of the North Vietnamese air defenses
Vietnam People's Army
The Vietnam People's Army is the armed forces of Vietnam. The VPA includes: the Vietnamese People's Ground Forces , the Vietnam People's Navy , the Vietnam People's Air Force, and the Vietnam Marine Police.During the French Indochina War , the VPA was often referred to as the Việt...
, which used Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
-designed and -supplied surface-to-air missile
Surface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...
s, anti-aircraft artillery, and MiG
Mig
-Industry:*MiG, now Mikoyan, a Russian aircraft corporation, formerly the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau*Metal inert gas welding or MIG welding, a type of welding using an electric arc and a shielding gas-Business and finance:...
jet interceptors. McCain's first five attack missions over North Vietnam went without incident, and while still unconcerned with minor Navy regulations, McCain had garnered the reputation of a serious aviator. McCain and his fellow pilots were frustrated by the micromanagement of Rolling Thunder from Washington; he later wrote, "The target list was so restricted that we had to go back and hit the same targets over and over again... Most of our pilots flying the missions believed that our targets were virtually worthless. In all candor, we thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots who didn't have the least notion of what it took to win the war."
Carrier air wing
A Carrier Air Wing is an operational naval aviation organization composed of several aircraft squadrons and detachments of various types of fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft...
was preparing to launch attacks, a Zuni rocket
Zuni (rocket)
The Zuni is a unguided rocket deployed by the United States armed forces. The rocket was developed for both air-to-air and air-to-ground operations. It can be used to carry various types of warheads, including chaff for countermeasures. It is usually fired from the LAU-10 rocket pod holding four...
from an F-4 Phantom
F-4 Phantom II
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a tandem two-seat, twin-engined, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor fighter/fighter-bomber originally developed for the United States Navy by McDonnell Aircraft. It first entered service in 1960 with the U.S. Navy. Proving highly adaptable,...
accidentally fired across the carrier's deck. The rocket struck either McCain's A-4E Skyhawk or one near it. The impact ruptured the Skyhawk's fuel tank, which ignited the fuel and knocked two bombs loose. McCain later said, "I thought my aircraft exploded. Flames were everywhere." McCain escaped from his jet by climbing out the cockpit, working himself to the nose of the jet, and jumping off its refueling probe onto the burning deck. His flight suit caught on fire as he rolled through the flames, but he was able to put it out. He went to help another pilot trying to escape the fire when the first bomb exploded; McCain was thrown backwards ten feet (three meters) and suffered minor wounds when struck in the legs and chest by fragments. McCain helped crewmen throw unexploded bombs overboard off the hangar deck elevator, then went to Forrestals ready room
Ready room
A ready room is a room on an aircraft carrier where on-duty pilots "stand by" their aeroplanes. Each flight squadron has its own individual ready room. Large squadrons, such as torpedo and dive-bomber squadrons, can have more than one ready room...
and with other pilots watched the ensuing fire
1967 USS Forrestal fire
The 1967 USS Forrestal fire was a devastating fire and series of chain-reaction explosions on 29 July 1967 that killed 134 sailors and injured 161 on the aircraft carrier , after an unusual electrical anomaly discharged a Zuni rocket on the flight deck...
and the fire-fighting efforts on the room's closed-circuit television
Closed-circuit television
Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....
. The fire killed 134 sailors, injured scores of others, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and took 24 hours to control. In Saigon a day after the conflagration, McCain praised the heroism of enlisted men who gave their lives trying to save the pilots on deck, and told New York Times reporter R. W. Apple, Jr.
R. W. Apple, Jr.
Raymond Walter Apple, Jr. , known to all as "Johnny", but bylined as R.W. Apple Jr, was an associate editor at The New York Times, where he wrote on a variety of subjects, most notably politics, travel, and food....
, "It's a difficult thing to say. But now that I've seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I'm not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam." But such a change of course was unlikely; as McCain added, "I always wanted to be in the Navy. I was born into it and I never really considered another profession. But I always had trouble with the regimentation."
Attack Squadron 163 (United States Navy)
Attack Squadron 163 Saints was an aviation unit of the United States Navy. VA-163 flew the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk from 1960 to 1969.-History:On September 1, 1960, Attack Squadron 163 was established at Naval Air Station Cecil Field, Florida...
squadron on board the . This carrier had earlier endured its own deck fire disaster and its squadrons had suffered some of the heaviest losses during Rolling Thunder. The Saints had a reputation for aggressive, daring attacks, but paid the price: in 1967, one-third of their pilots were killed or captured, and all of their original fifteen A-4s had been destroyed. After taking some leave in Europe and back home in Orange Park, Florida
Orange Park, Florida
Orange Park is a town in Clay County, Florida, USA, and a suburb of Jacksonville. The population was 8,412 at the 2010 census. The name "Orange Park" is additionally applied to a wider area of northern Clay County outside the town limits, covering such communities as Fleming Island, Lakeside, and...
, McCain joined Oriskany on September 30, 1967, for a tour he expected would finish early the next summer. He volunteered to fly the squadron's most dangerous missions right away, rather than work his way up to them. During October 1967, the pilots operated in constant twelve-hour on, twelve-hour off shifts. McCain would be awarded a Navy Commendation Medal for leading his air section through heavy enemy fire during an October 18 raid on the Lac Trai shipyard in Haiphong
Haiphong
, also Haiphong, is the third most populous city in Vietnam. The name means, "coastal defence".-History:Hai Phong was originally founded by Lê Chân, the female general of a Vietnamese revolution against the Chinese led by the Trưng Sisters in the year 43 C.E.The area which is now known as Duong...
. On October 25, McCain successfully attacked the Phuc Yen
Phuc Yen
Phúc Yên is a town district of Vinh Phuc province in the Red River Delta region of Vietnam. As of 2003 the district had a population of 83,352. The district covers an area of 120 km². The district capital lies at Phuc Yen....
airfield north of Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
through a barrage of anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile fire, which would garner him the Bronze Star
Bronze Star Medal
The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. As a medal it is awarded for merit, and with the "V" for valor device it is awarded for heroism. It is the fourth-highest combat award of the...
. Air defenses around Hanoi were then the strongest they would be during the entire war.
Arrival
On October 26, 1967, McCain was flying his twenty-third mission, part of a twenty-plane strike force against the Yen Phu thermal power plantThermal power station
A thermal power station is a power plant in which the prime mover is steam driven. Water is heated, turns into steam and spins a steam turbine which drives an electrical generator. After it passes through the turbine, the steam is condensed in a condenser and recycled to where it was heated; this...
in central Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
that previously had almost always been off-limits to U.S. raids due to the possibility of collateral damage
Collateral damage
Collateral damage is damage to people or property that is unintended or incidental to the intended outcome. The phrase is prevalently used as an euphemism for civilian casualties of a military action.-Etymology:...
. Arriving just before noon, McCain dove from 9,000 to 4,000 feet on his approach; as he neared the target, warning systems in McCain's A-4E Skyhawk alerted him that he was being tracked by enemy fire-control radar
Fire-control radar
A fire-control radar is a radar which is designed specifically to provide information to a fire-control system in order to calculate a firing solution...
. Like other U.S. pilots, he would not consider breaking off a bombing run, and he held his dive until he released his bombs at about 3,500 feet (1,000 m). As he started to pull up, the Skyhawk's wing was blown off by a Soviet-made SA-2
S-75 Dvina
The S-75 Dvina is a Soviet-designed, high-altitude, command guided, surface-to-air missile system...
anti-aircraft missile fired by the North Vietnamese Air Defense Command's 61st Battalion, commanded by Captain Nguyen Lan and with fire control officer Lieutenant Nguyen Xuan Dai. (McCain was later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
The Distinguished Flying Cross is a medal awarded to any officer or enlisted member of the United States armed forces who distinguishes himself or herself in support of operations by "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight, subsequent to November 11, 1918." The...
for this day, while Nguyen Xuan Dai was awarded the title Hero of the People's Armed Forces. Decades later, Soviet Army
Soviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...
Lieutenant Yuri Trushechkin claimed that he had been the missile guidance officer who had shot McCain down. In any case, the raid was a failure, as the power plant was not damaged and three of the Navy planes were shot down.)
Spin (flight)
In aviation, a spin is an aggravated stall resulting in autorotation about the spin axis wherein the aircraft follows a corkscrew downward path. Spins can be entered intentionally or unintentionally, from any flight attitude and from practically any airspeed—all that is required is sufficient yaw...
. Bailing out upside down at high speed, the force of the ejection fractured McCain's right arm in three places, his left arm, and his right leg at the knee, and knocked him unconscious. McCain nearly drowned after parachuting into Trúc Bạch Lake in Hanoi; the weight of his equipment was pulling him down, and as he regained consciousness, he could not use his arms. Eventually, he was able to inflate his life vest using his teeth. Several Vietnamese, possibly led by Department of Industry clerk Mai Van On, pulled him ashore. A mob gathered around, spat on him, kicked him, and stripped him of his clothes; his left shoulder was crushed with the butt of a rifle and he was bayoneted in his left foot and abdominal area. He was then transported to Hanoi's main Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by American POWs.
McCain reached Hoa Lo in as bad a physical condition as any prisoner during the war. His captors refused to give him medical care unless he gave them military information; they beat and interrogated him, but McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth (the only information he was required to provide under the Geneva Conventions
Third Geneva Convention
The Third Geneva Convention, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was first adopted in 1929, but was significantly updated in 1949...
and permitted to give under the U.S. Code of Conduct). Soon thinking he was near death, McCain said he would give them more information if taken to the hospital, hoping he could then put his interrogators off once he was treated. A prison doctor came and said it was too late, as McCain was about to die anyway. Only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral did they give him medical care, calling him "the crown prince". Two days after McCain's plane went down, that event and his status as a POW made the front pages of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
. Interrogation and beatings resumed in the hospital; McCain gave the North Vietnamese his ship's name, squadron's name, and the attack's intended target. This information, along with personal details of McCain's life and purported statements by McCain about the war's progress, would appear over the next two weeks in the North Vietnamese official newspaper Nhân Dân
Nhân Dân
Nhân Dân is the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam. According to the newspaper, it is “the voice of the Party, State and people of Vietnam.”...
as well as in dispatches from outlets such as the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina
Prensa Latina
Prensa Latina, legal name Agencia de Noticias Latinoamericana S.A. , is the official state news agency of Cuba, founded in March 1959 shortly after the Cuban Revolution.-Overview:...
. Disclosing the military information was in violation of the Code of Conduct, which McCain later wrote he regretted, although he saw the information as being of no practical use to the North Vietnamese. Further coerced to give future targets, he named cities that had already been bombed, and responding to demands for the names of his squadron's members, he supplied instead the names of the Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...
' offensive line.
McCain spent six weeks in the hospital, receiving marginal care in a dirty, wet environment. A prolonged attempt to set the fractures on his right arm, done without anesthetic, was unsuccessful; he received an operation on his broken leg but no treatment for his broken left arm. He was temporarily taken to a clean room and interviewed by a French journalist, François Chalais
François Chalais
François Chalais was a prominent French reporter, journalist, writer and film historian. The François Chalais Prize at the annual Cannes Film Festival is named after him....
, whose report was carried on the French television program Panorama in January 1968 and later in the U.S. on the CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
. The film footage of McCain lying in the bed, in a cast, smoking cigarettes and speaking haltingly, would become the most well-known images of McCain's imprisonment. McCain was observed by a variety of North Vietnamese, including renowned Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Tuân and Defense Minister and Army commander-in-chief General Vo Nguyen Giap
Vo Nguyen Giap
Võ Nguyên Giáp is a retired Vietnamese officer in the Vietnam People’s Army and a politician. He was a principal commander in two wars: the First Indochina War and the Vietnam War...
. Many of the North Vietnamese observers assumed that McCain must be part of America's political-military-economic elite. Now having lost fifty pounds (twenty-three kilograms), in a chest cast, covered in grime and eyes full of fever, and with his hair turned white, in early December 1967 McCain was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on the outskirts of Hanoi nicknamed "the Plantation". He was placed in a cell with George "Bud" Day
Bud Day
George Everette "Bud" Day is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and Command Pilot who served during the Vietnam War, to include five years and seven months as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam. He is often cited as being the most decorated U.S. service member since General Douglas MacArthur, having...
, a badly injured and tortured Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
pilot (later awarded the Medal of Honor
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It is bestowed by the President, in the name of Congress, upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her...
) and Norris Overly, another Air Force pilot; they did not expect McCain to live another week. Overly, and subsequently Day, nursed McCain and kept him alive; Day later remembered that McCain had "a fantastic will to live".
Solitary
In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinementSolitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
, where he remained for two years. Unknown to the POWs, in April 1968, Jack McCain was named Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC)
United States Pacific Command
The United States Pacific Command is a Unified Combatant Command of the United States armed forces responsible for the Pacific Ocean area. It is led by the Commander, Pacific Command , who is the supreme military authority for the various branches of the Armed Forces of the United States serving...
effective in July, stationed in Honolulu and commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater. In mid-June, Major Bai, commander of the North Vietnamese prison camp system, offered McCain a chance to return home early. The North Vietnamese wanted to score a worldwide propaganda coup by appearing merciful, and also wanted to show other POWs that members of the elite like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially. McCain turned down the offer of release, due to the POWs' "first in, first out" interpretation of the U.S. Code of Conduct: he would only accept the offer if every man captured before him was released as well. McCain's refusal to be released was remarked upon by North Vietnamese senior negotiator Le Duc Tho
Le Duc Tho
Lê Đức Thọ , born Phan Đình Khải in Ha Nam province, was a Vietnamese revolutionary, general, diplomat, and politician, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1973, although he declined it....
to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman, during the ongoing Paris Peace Talks. Enraged by his declining of the offer, Bai and his assistant told McCain that things would get very bad for him.
In late August 1968, a program of vigorous torture methods began on McCain. The North Vietnamese used rope bindings to put him into prolonged, painful positions and severely beat him every two hours, all while he was suffering from dysentery. His right leg was reinjured, his ribs were cracked, some teeth were broken at the gumline, and his left arm was re-fractured. Lying in his own waste, his spirit was broken; the beginnings of a suicide attempt were stopped by guards. After four days of this, McCain signed and taped an anti-American propaganda "confession" that said, in part, "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died, and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors." He used stilted Communist jargon and ungrammatical language to signal that the statement was forced. McCain was haunted then and since with the belief that he had dishonored his country, his family, his comrades and himself by his statement, but as he later wrote, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine." Two weeks later his captors tried to force him to sign a second statement; his will to resist restored, he refused. He sometimes received two to three beatings per week because of his continued resistance; the sustained mistreatment went on for over a year. His refusals to cooperate, laced with loud obscenities directed towards his guards, were often heard by other POWs. His boxing experience from his Naval Academy days helped him withstand the battering, and the North Vietnamese did not break him again.
Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions" and propaganda statements. Many, especially among those who had been captured earlier and imprisoned longer, endured even worse treatment than McCain. Under extreme duress, virtually all the POWs eventually yielded something to their captors. There were momentary exceptions: on one occasion, a guard surreptitiously loosened McCain's painful rope bindings for a night; when, months later, the guard later saw McCain on Christmas Day, he stood next to McCain and silently drew a cross
Christian cross
The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity...
in the dirt with his foot. In October 1968, McCain's isolation was partly relieved when Ernest C. Brace
Ernest C. Brace
Ernest C. Brace was the longest-held civilian prisoner of war in Vietnam.Brace, a former Marine Corps pilot who had flown more than 100 combat missions in Korea, had been accused of deserting the scene of an aircraft accident and was court-martialed and discharged from the Marines.Brace then...
was placed in the cell next to him; he taught Brace the tap code the prisoners used to communicate. On Christmas Eve 1968, a church service for the POWs was staged for photographers and film cameras; McCain defied North Vietnamese instructions to be quiet, speaking out details of his treatment then shouting "Fu-u-u-u-ck you, you son of a bitch!" and giving the finger whenever a camera was pointed at him. McCain refused to meet with various anti-Vietnam War peace groups
Opposition to the Vietnam War
The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...
coming to Hanoi, such as those led by David Dellinger
David Dellinger
David T. Dellinger , was an influential American radical, a pacifist and activist for nonviolent social change.-Chicago Seven:...
, Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden
Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, known for his involvement in the animal rights, and the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.-Life and...
, and Rennie Davis
Rennie Davis
Rennard Cordon “Rennie” Davis is a former, prominent American anti-Vietnam War protest leader of the 1960s. He was one of the Chicago Seven....
, not wanting to give either them or the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory based on his connection to his father. McCain was still badly hobbled by his injuries, earning the nickname "Crip" among the other POWs, but despite his physical condition, continued beatings and isolation, he was one of the key players in the Plantation's resistance efforts.
In May 1969, U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird began publicly questioning North Vietnamese treatment of U.S. prisoners. On June 5, 1969, a United Press International
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
report described a Radio Hanoi
Radio Hanoi
Radio Hanoi was a propaganda radio station run by the North Vietnamese Army during the Vietnam War.In September 1967, Radio Hanoi transmitted a message by General Võ Nguyên Giáp entitled "The Big Victory, The Great Task". Unbenknownst to Americans listening to the message, it was actually an...
broadcast that denied any such mistreatment. The broadcast used excerpts from McCain's forced "confession" of a year before, including a statement where he said he had bombed "cities, towns and villages" and had received "very good medical treatment" as a prisoner. In late 1969, treatment of McCain and the other POWs suddenly improved. North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
had died the previous month, possibly causing a change in policy towards POWs. Also, a badly beaten and weakened POW who had been released that summer disclosed to the world press the conditions to which they were being subjected, and the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, which included McCain's brother Joe
Joe McCain
Joseph Pinckney "Joe" McCain II is a stage actor, newspaper reporter, and brother of U.S. Senator and two-time presidential candidate John McCain.-Early life and education:...
, heightened awareness of the POWs' plight. In December 1969, McCain was transferred back to the Hoa Lo "Hanoi Hilton"; his solitary confinement ended in March 1970. When the prisoners talked about what they wanted to do once they got out, McCain said he wanted to become President. McCain consented to a January 1970 interview outside Hoa Lo with Spanish-born, Cuban psychologist Fernando Barral, that was published in the official Cuban newspaper Granma
Granma (newspaper)
Granma is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party.Its name comes from the yacht Granma that carried Fidel Castro and 81 other rebels to Cuba's shores in 1956 launching the Cuban Revolution.-Editions:...
. McCain talked about his life and expressed no remorse for his bombing North Vietnam, and Barral proclaimed him "an insensitive individual without human depth." The POWs issued an edict forbidding any further such interviews, and despite pressure from his captors, McCain subsequently refused to see any anti-war groups or journalists sympathetic to the North Vietnamese regime.
Release
McCain and other prisoners were moved around to different camps at times, but conditions over the next several years were generally more tolerable than they had been before. Unbeknownst to them, each year that Jack McCain was CINCPAC, he paid a Christmastime visit to the American troops in South VietnamSouth Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
serving closest to the DMZ
Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone
The Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone was established as a dividing line between North and South Vietnam as a result of the First Indochina War.During the Second Indochina War , it became important as the battleground demarcation separating North Vietnamese territory from South Vietnamese territory.-...
; he would stand alone and look north, to be as close to his son as he could get. By 1971, some 30–50 percent of the POWs had become disillusioned about the war, both because of the apparent lack of military progress and what they heard of the growing anti-war movement in the U.S., and some of them were less reluctant to make propaganda statements for the North Vietnamese. McCain was not among them: he participated in a defiant church service and led an effort to write letters home that only portrayed the camp in a negative light, and as a result spent much of the year in a camp reserved for "bad attitude" cases.
Back at the "Hanoi Hilton" from November 1971 onward, McCain and the other POWs cheered the resumed bombing of the north starting in April 1972
Operation Linebacker
Operation Linebacker was the title of a U.S. Seventh Air Force and U.S. Navy Task Force 77 aerial interdiction campaign conducted against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 9 May to 23 October 1972, during the Vietnam War....
, whose targets included the Hanoi area and whose daily orders were issued by Jack McCain, knowing his son was in the vicinity. Jack McCain's tour as CINCPAC ended in September 1972, despite his desire to have it extended so he could see the war to its conclusion. The old-time POWs cheered even more during the intense "Christmas Bombing" campaign
Operation Linebacker II
Operation Linebacker II was a US Seventh Air Force and US Navy Task Force 77 aerial bombing campaign, conducted against targets in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the final period of US involvement in the Vietnam War...
of December 1972, when Hanoi was subjected for the first time to repeated B-52 Stratofortress
B-52 Stratofortress
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, who have continued to provide maintainence and upgrades to the aircraft in service...
raids. Although its explosions lit the night sky and shook the walls of the camp, scaring some of the newer POWs, most saw it as a forceful measure to compel North Vietnam to finally come to terms.
The Paris Peace Accords
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War, ended direct U.S. military involvement, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam...
were signed on January 27, 1973, ending direct U.S. involvement in the war, but the Operation Homecoming
Operation Homecoming
Operation Homecoming was a series of diplomatic negotiations that in January 1973 made possible the return of 591 American prisoners of war held by North Vietnam. On Feb. 12, 1973, three C-141 transports flew to Hanoi, North Vietnam, and one C-9A aircraft was sent to Saigon, South Vietnam to pick...
arrangements for the 591 American POWs took longer. McCain was finally released from captivity on March 14, 1973, being taken by bus to Gia Lam Airport
Gia Lam Airport
Gia Lam Airport is one of two major airports in Hanoi, Vietnam, located in Gia Lâm District, on the eastern bank of the Red River. It is primarily a military field, used by the Vietnam People's Air Force , with MiG-21 fighters and Kamov Ka-28 helicopters stored in revetments. The airfield was...
, transferred to U.S. custody, and flown by C-141
C-141 Starlifter
The Lockheed C-141 Starlifter was a military strategic airlifter in service with the Air Mobility Command of the United States Air Force...
to Clark Air Base
Clark Air Base
Clark Air Base is a former United States Air Force base on Luzon Island in the Philippines, located 3 miles west of Angeles City, about 40 miles northwest of Metro Manila. Clark Air Base was an American military facility from 1903 to 1991...
in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
.
Altogether, McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years, nearly five of them after his refusal to accept the out-of-sequence repatriation offer. His wartime injuries left him permanently incapable of raising either arm more than 80 degrees. For his actions as a POW, McCain was awarded the Silver Star
Silver Star
The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....
, the Legion of Merit
Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit is a military decoration of the United States armed forces that is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements...
, three more instances of the Bronze Star
Bronze Star Medal
The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. As a medal it is awarded for merit, and with the "V" for valor device it is awarded for heroism. It is the fourth-highest combat award of the...
, another instance of the Navy Commendation Medal, and the Purple Heart
Purple Heart
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York...
. He also gained an appreciation, from experiencing the mutual help and organized resistance of the POWs, that his earlier individualism needed to be tempered by a belief in causes greater than self-interest.
Return to United States
Ross Perot
Henry Ross Perot is a U.S. businessman best known for running for President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Perot founded Electronic Data Systems in 1962, sold the company to General Motors in 1984, and founded Perot Systems in 1988...
had paid for her medical care. By the time McCain saw her, she was four inches (ten centimeters) shorter, on crutches, and substantially heavier. As a returned POW, McCain became a celebrity of sorts: The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
ran a story and front-page photo of him getting off the plane at Clark Air Base
Clark Air Base
Clark Air Base is a former United States Air Force base on Luzon Island in the Philippines, located 3 miles west of Angeles City, about 40 miles northwest of Metro Manila. Clark Air Base was an American military facility from 1903 to 1991...
in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
; he authored a thirteen-page cover story describing his ordeal and his support for the Nixon administration's handling of the war in U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
; he participated in parades in Orange Park and elsewhere and made personal appearances before groups, where he showed strong speaking skills; he was given the key to the city of Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
; and a photograph of him on crutches shaking the hand of President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
at a White House reception for returning POWs became iconic. The McCains became frequent guests of honor at dinners hosted by Governor of California
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
and his wife Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
, and John McCain made a strong impression speaking at a large prayer breakfast hosted by the governor. McCain had admired Ronald Reagan while in captivity and afterwards, believing him a man who saw honor in Vietnam service and a potential leader would not lead the nation into a war it was unwilling to win.
McCain underwent three operations and other treatment for his injuries, spending three months at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Jacksonville. Psychological tests, given to all the returning POWs, showed that McCain had "adjusted exceptionally well to repatriation" and had "an ambitious, striving, successful pattern of adjustment". McCain told examiners that he withstood his ordeal by having "Faith in country, United States Navy, family, and God". Unlike many veterans, McCain did not experience flashbacks or nightmares of his Vietnam experience, although due to the association with prison guards, the sound of keys rattling would cause him to "tense up".
McCain was promoted to commander
Commander (United States)
In the United States, commander is a military rank that is also sometimes used as a military title, depending on the branch of service. It is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the military, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Naval rank:In the United States...
effective July 1973 and attended the National War College
National War College
The National War College of the United States is a school in the National Defense University. It is housed in Roosevelt Hall on Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., the third-oldest Army post still active. It was officially established on July 1, 1946, as an upgraded replacement for the...
in Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. during the 1973–1974 academic year. There he intensively studied the history of Vietnam and the French and American wars there
Indochina Wars
The Indochina Wars were a series of wars fought in Southeast Asia from 1947 until 1979, between nationalist Vietnamese against French, American, and Chinese forces. The term "Indochina" originally referred to French Indochina, which included the current states of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In...
, and wrote "The Code of Conduct and the Vietnam Prisoners of War
The Code of Conduct and the Vietnam Prisoners of War
The Code of Conduct and the Vietnam War is a report from an individual research project conducted by John McCain, Commander, United States Navy, at the National War College...
", a long paper on the Vietnam POW experience as a test of the U.S. Code of Conduct. By the time he graduated, he concluded that mistakes by American political and military leaders had doomed the war effort. He accepted the right of the anti-war movement in the U.S. to have exercised their freedom to protest, and he adopted a live-and-let-live attitude towards those who had evaded the draft. Nor did the vast changes in American social mores that had taken place during his absence bother him, as it did many other former POWs. McCain returned to Saigon in November 1974; he and a couple of other former POWs received the National Order of Vietnam
National Order of Vietnam
The National Order of Vietnam was a combined military-civilian decoration of South Vietnam and was considered the highest honor that could be bestowed upon an individual by the Republic of Vietnam government....
, that country's highest honor. He also spoke at the South Vietnamese war college, five months before Saigon fell
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975...
. McCain resolved not to become a "professional POW" but to move forward and rebuild his life. Few thought McCain could fly again, but he was determined to try, and during this time he engaged in nine months of grueling, painful physical therapy
Physical therapy
Physical therapy , often abbreviated PT, is a health care profession. Physical therapy is concerned with identifying and maximizing quality of life and movement potential within the spheres of promotion, prevention, diagnosis, treatment/intervention,and rehabilitation...
, especially to get his knees to bend again.
Commanding officer
McCain recuperated just enough to pass his flight physical and have his flight status reinstated. In August 1974, he was assigned to the Replacement Air Group VA-174 "Hellrazors". This was an A-7 Corsair IIA-7 Corsair II
The Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II is a carrier-based subsonic light attack aircraft introduced to replace the United States Navy's Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, initially entering service during the Vietnam War...
training squadron located at Naval Air Station Cecil Field
Naval Air Station Cecil Field
Naval Air Station Cecil Field or NAS Cecil Field was a United States Navy base, located in Duval County, Florida. NAS Cecil Field was the largest military base in the Jacksonville, Florida, area....
in Jacksonville and the largest aviation squadron in the Navy. He became its executive officer
Executive officer
An executive officer is generally a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization.-Administrative law:...
in 1975, and on July 1, 1976, he was made VA-174's commanding officer
Commanding officer
The commanding officer is the officer in command of a military unit. Typically, the commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitude to run the unit as he sees fit, within the bounds of military law...
. This last assignment was controversial, as he did not have the required experience of having commanded a smaller squadron first (something that he now had too high a rank to do). While some senior officers resented McCain's presence as favoritism due to his father, junior officers rallied to him and helped him qualify for A-7 carrier landings.
As commanding officer, McCain relied upon a relatively unorthodox leadership style based upon the force of his personality. He removed personnel he thought ineffective, and sought to improve morale and productivity by establishing an informal rapport with enlisted men. Dealing with limited post-Vietnam defense budgets and parts shortages, he was forceful in demanding that respect be given the female officers just beginning to arrive into the unit. McCain's leadership abilities were credited with improving the unit's aircraft readiness; for the first time, all fifty of its aircraft were able to fly. Although some operational metrics declined during the period, the pilot safety improved to the point of having zero accidents. The squadron was awarded its first-ever Meritorious Unit Commendation
Meritorious Unit Commendation
The Meritorious Unit Commendation is a mid-level unit award of the United States military which is awarded to any military command which displays exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service, heroic deeds, or valorous actions....
, while McCain received a Meritorious Service Medal
Meritorious Service Medal (United States)
The Meritorious Service Medal is a military decoration presented to members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguished themselves by outstanding meritorious achievement or service to the United States subsequent to January 16, 1969...
. McCain later stated that being commanding officer of VA-174 was the most rewarding assignment of his naval career. When his stint ended in July 1977, the change of command ceremony was attended by his father and the rest of his family, as well as some of his fellow POWs; speaker Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr.
Isaac C. Kidd, Jr.
Isaac Campbell Kidd, Jr. was an American Admiral in the United States Navy who served as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO's Atlantic Fleet, and also as commander in chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet from 1975 to 1978. He was the son of Rear Admiral Isaac C...
said that John had joined Jack and Slew McCain in a place of honor in Navy tradition, a tribute that deeply moved McCain.
During their time in Jacksonville, the McCains' marriage began to falter. McCain had extramarital affairs; he was seen with other women in social settings and developed a reputation among his colleagues for womanizing. Some of McCain's activity with other women occurred when he was off-duty after routine flights to Marine Corps Air Station Yuma
Marine Corps Air Station Yuma
Marine Corps Air Station Yuma or MCAS Yuma is a United States Marine Corps air station which is the home to multiple squadrons of AV-8B Harrier IIs of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1 and Marine Fighter Training Squadron 401 , an air combat adversary...
and Naval Air Facility El Centro
Naval Air Facility El Centro
Naval Air Facility El Centro or NAF El Centro is a military airport located six miles northwest of El Centro, in Imperial County, California, USA.-History:...
. McCain later said, "My marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine." His wife Carol later stated that the failure was not due to her accident or Vietnam and that "I attribute [the breakup of our marriage] more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else." John McCain's biographer, Robert Timberg, believes that "Vietnam did play a part, perhaps not the major part, but more than a walk-on." According to John McCain, "I had changed, she had changed. People who have been apart that much change."
Senate liaison, divorce, and second marriage
McCain had thought about entering politics since his return from Vietnam, although 1964 had been the only time in his life he had ever voted. In 1976, he briefly thought of running for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida; he had the support of some local figures in Jacksonville, but was convinced by other Republican Party leaders that he did not have sufficient political experience, funding, or popular support to defeat longtime DemocraticDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
incumbent Charles E. Bennett
Charles Edward Bennett
Charles Edward Bennett was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Florida from 1949 to 1993. He was a Democrat who resided in Jacksonville, Florida.-Early years:...
. He did work so hard for Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's 1976 Republican primary campaign
Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1976
The 1976 Republican presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 1976 U.S. presidential election...
that his base commander reprimanded him for being too politically active for his naval position.
As his tenure with VA-174 was ending, McCain was assigned to a low-profile desk job within the Naval Air Systems Command
Naval Air Systems Command
The Naval Air Systems Command provides material support for aircraft and airborne weapon systems for the United States Navy. NAVAIR was established in 1966 as the successor to the Navy's Bureau of Naval Weapons . Current Commander, Naval Air Systems Command, is Vice Adm. David Architzel since May...
. Chief of Naval Operations
Chief of Naval Operations
The Chief of Naval Operations is a statutory office held by a four-star admiral in the United States Navy, and is the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Navy. The office is a military adviser and deputy to the Secretary of the Navy...
Admiral James L. Holloway III
James L. Holloway III
James Lemuel Holloway III is a retired United States Navy admiral and naval aviator who was highly decorated for his actions during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. After the Vietnam War, he was posted to The Pentagon, where he established the Navy's Nuclear Powered Carrier...
thought this assignment a waste of McCain's social talents, and instead in July 1977 McCain was appointed to the Senate Liaison Office within the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs
Office of Legislative Affairs (United States Navy)
The Office of Legislative Affairs is a United States Navy function which coordinates activities between the Department of the Navy and the United States Congress.The office reports to the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations...
(an assignment Jack McCain had once held). The office's role mostly consisted of providing constituent
Electoral district
An electoral district is a distinct territorial subdivision for holding a separate election for one or more seats in a legislative body...
service and acting as a facilitator among legislators, the Department of Defense, and lobbyists. McCain later said the liaison job represented "[my] real entry into the world of politics and the beginning of my second career as a public servant". McCain's lively personality and knowledge of military matters made his post in the Russell Senate Office Building
Russell Senate Office Building
The Russell Senate Office Building is the oldest of the United States Senate office buildings. Designed in the Beaux-Arts architectural style, it was built from 1903 to 1908, opened in 1909, and named for former Senator Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. of Georgia in 1972...
a popular gathering spot for senators and staff. He also frequently escorted congressional delegations on overseas trips, where he arranged entertaining side escapades. McCain was influenced by senators of both parties, and formed an especially strong bond with John Tower
John Tower
John Goodwin Tower was the first Republican United States senator from Texas since Reconstruction. He served from 1961 until his retirement in January 1985, after which time he was the chairman of the Reagan-appointed Tower Commission that investigated the Iran-Contra Affair. He was George H. W...
of Texas, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. During 1978 and 1979, McCain played a key behind-the-scenes role in gaining congressional funding for a new supercarrier
Supercarrier
Supercarrier is an unofficial descriptive term for the largest type of aircraft carrier, usually displacing over 70,000 long tons.Supercarrier is an unofficial descriptive term for the largest type of aircraft carrier, usually displacing over 70,000 long tons.Supercarrier is an unofficial...
against the wishes of the Carter administration and Navy Secretary W. Graham Claytor Jr.
W. Graham Claytor Jr.
William Graham Claytor, Jr. was an American lawyer, naval officer, and railroad, transportation and defense administrator for the United States government, working under the administrations of three US presidents....
In August 1979, McCain was promoted to captain, and became Director of the Senate Liaison Office. During McCain's time there, the Senate Liaison Office enjoyed one of its few periods of high influence.
McCain and his wife Carol had been briefly separated soon after returning to Washington, but then reunited and remained married. In April 1979, while attending a military reception for senators in Hawaii, McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley, eighteen years his junior, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
and the daughter of James Willis Hensley, a wealthy Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...
beer distributor, and Marguerite "Smitty" Hensley. They began dating, travelling between Arizona and Washington to see each other, and John McCain urged his wife Carol to accept a divorce. The McCains stopped cohabiting in January 1980, and John McCain filed for divorce in February, which Carol McCain accepted at that time. After she did not respond to court summonses, the uncontested divorce became official in Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Fort Walton Beach is a city in southern Okaloosa County, Florida, United States. As of 2005, the population estimate for Fort Walton Beach was 19,992, and as of 2010, the population estimate for Fort Walton Beach is 19,507 recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau...
, on April 2, 1980. McCain gave Carol a settlement that included full custody of their children, alimony, child support including college tuition, houses in Virginia and Florida, and lifelong financial support for her ongoing medical treatments resulting from the 1969 automobile accident; they would remain on good terms. McCain and Hensley were married on May 17, 1980 in Phoenix, with Senators William Cohen
William Cohen
William Sebastian Cohen is an author and American politician from the U.S. state of Maine. A Republican, Cohen served as Secretary of Defense under Democratic President Bill Clinton.-Early life and education:...
and Gary Hart
Gary Hart
Gary Hart is an American politician, lawyer, author, professor and commentator. He served as a Democratic Senator representing Colorado , and ran in the U.S...
as best man and groomsman. McCain's children were upset with him and did not attend the wedding, but after several years they reconciled with him and Cindy. Carol McCain became a personal assistant to Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
and later Director of the White House Visitors Office
White House Visitors Office
The White House Visitors Office is responsible for public tours of the White House, for maintaining a facility where the public can obtain information about the White House, and for other White House events such as the White House Easter Egg Roll, Holiday Open Houses, Spring and Fall Garden tours,...
. The Reagans were stunned by the divorce; Nancy Reagan's relationship with John McCain turned cold for a while following it, but eventually the two renewed their friendship. The same happened with most of McCain's other friends, who were eventually won over by the force of his personality and his frequent expressions of guilt over what had happened.
Around the end of 1980, McCain decided to retire from the Navy. He had not been given a major sea command, and his physical condition had deteriorated, causing him to fail the flight physical required for any carrier command position (in addition to his limited arm movement, certain weather would always cause him to walk with a limp). McCain thought he might make rear admiral
Rear admiral (United States)
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. The uniformed services of the United States are unique in having two grades of rear admirals.- Rear admiral :...
, but probably not vice admiral
Vice admiral (United States)
In the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps, and the United States Maritime Service, vice admiral is a three-star flag officer, with the pay grade of...
, and never become a four-star admiral
Admiral (United States)
In the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard and the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, admiral is a four-star flag officer rank, with the pay grade of O-10. Admiral ranks above vice admiral and below Fleet Admiral in the Navy; the Coast Guard and the Public Health...
as his grandfather and father had been. McCain later wrote that he did not anguish over his decision, although it pained his mother, who thought congressional careers paled in comparison to top naval ones. He was excited by the idea of being a member of Congress and was soon recruiting a campaign manager that Cohen knew, for a planned run at a House seat from Arizona. In early 1981, Secretary of the Navy
United States Secretary of the Navy
The Secretary of the Navy of the United States of America is the head of the Department of the Navy, a component organization of the Department of Defense...
John F. Lehman, who did not want to see McCain leave the liaison post, told McCain that he was still on the path to be selected for one-star rear admiral. McCain told Lehman that he was leaving the Navy and that he could "do more good" in Congress.
McCain retired with an effective date of April 1, 1981, the rank of captain, and a disability pension
Veteran's pension
A veteran's pension is a pension for veterans of the United States Armed Forces, who served in the military but did not qualify for a retirement pension from the Armed Forces. It was established by the United States Congress and given to veterans who meet the eligibility requirements...
due to his wartime injuries. For his service in the Senate liaison office, McCain was awarded a second instance of the Legion of Merit
Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit is a military decoration of the United States armed forces that is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements...
. Jack McCain died on March 22, 1981. On March 27, 1981, McCain attended his father's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...
, wearing his uniform for the last time before signing his discharge papers, and later that day flew to Phoenix with his wife Cindy to begin his new life.
Awards and decorations
John McCain received the following medals and decorations: |
Silver Star Silver Star The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy.... |
| Legion of Merit Legion of Merit The Legion of Merit is a military decoration of the United States armed forces that is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements... with valor device Valor device The Valor device is an award of the United States military which is a bronze attachment to certain medals to indicate that it was received for valor... and one award star Award star An award star is a decoration issued to personnel of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard in lieu of multiple awards of the same award. An award star is very similar to an oak leaf cluster, which serves the same purpose in the United States Army and United States Air Force... |
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Distinguished Flying Cross Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) The Distinguished Flying Cross is a medal awarded to any officer or enlisted member of the United States armed forces who distinguishes himself or herself in support of operations by "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight, subsequent to November 11, 1918." The... |
| Bronze Star Bronze Star Medal The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. As a medal it is awarded for merit, and with the "V" for valor device it is awarded for heroism. It is the fourth-highest combat award of the... with valor device and two award stars |
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| Purple Heart Purple Heart The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York... with one award star |
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Meritorious Service Medal Meritorious Service Medal (United States) The Meritorious Service Medal is a military decoration presented to members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguished themselves by outstanding meritorious achievement or service to the United States subsequent to January 16, 1969... |
| Air Medal Air Medal The Air Medal is a military decoration of the United States. The award was created in 1942, and is awarded for meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight.-Criteria:... with one award star and Strike/Flight numeral "2" Strike/Flight numerals Strike/Flight numerals are decorations of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps which are displayed on the Air Medal to denote the total number of Strike/Flight awards. Strike/Flight numerals are Arabic numerals five-sixteenths of an inch in height.... |
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| Navy Commendation Medal with valor device and one award star | |
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Combat Action Ribbon Combat Action Ribbon The Combat Action Ribbon is a personal military decoration of the United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, and United States Coast Guard which is awarded to those who, in any grade including and below that of a Captain in the Navy and Coast Guard , have actively participated in ground or... |
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Prisoner of War Medal Prisoner of War Medal The Prisoner of War Medal is a military award of the United States armed forces which was authorized by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on 8 November 1985... |
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Navy Expeditionary Medal Navy Expeditionary Medal The Navy Expeditionary Medal is an award of the United States Navy which was first created in August 1936 by General Orders of the Department of the Navy... (Cuban quarantine) |
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National Defense Service Medal National Defense Service Medal The National Defense Service Medal is a military service medal of the United States military originally commissioned by President Dwight D. Eisenhower... |
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Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal The Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal is a military award of the United States military, which was first created in 1961 by Executive Order of President John Kennedy... (Cuban quarantine) |
| Vietnam Service Medal Vietnam Service Medal The Vietnam Service Medal is a military award which was created in 1965 by order of President Lyndon B. Johnson. The distinctive design was the creation of sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones, a former employee of the Army Institute of Heraldry. The medal is issued to recognize military service during... with two service star Service star A service star, also referred to as a battle star, campaign star, or engagement star, is an attachment to a United States military decoration which denotes participation in military campaigns or multiple bestowals of the same award. Service stars are typically issued for campaign medals, service... s |
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| National Order of Vietnam National Order of Vietnam The National Order of Vietnam was a combined military-civilian decoration of South Vietnam and was considered the highest honor that could be bestowed upon an individual by the Republic of Vietnam government.... , Commander (Republic of Vietnam) |
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Vietnam Campaign Medal Vietnam Campaign Medal The Vietnam Campaign Medal is a military recognition awarded by the Republic of Vietnam, , to any member of the United States, Australian, New Zealand and allied military forces serving six months or more in support of Republic of Vietnam military operations.Established in 1966, the decoration is... with 1960 device (Republic of Vietnam) |