China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Thousands brave heat to honor ‘favorite adopted son’ McCain
PHOENIX — Thousands of people paid their respects to US Senator John McCain on Wednesday, standing for hours in the broiling Arizona sun before filing past the flagdraped casket that his tearful wife, Cindy, lovingly pressed her face against after a ceremony for the former prisoner of war who represented Arizona for decades.
Former military members in shorts and T-shirts stopped and saluted the closed casket flanked by National Guard members at the Arizona Capitol. Families with small children came by, and several people placed their hand over their heart or bowed, including Vietnamese-born residents who traveled from Southern California.
The private service held earlier marked the first appearance of McCain’s family since the Republican senator died on Saturday of brain cancer. It also began two days of official mourning in Arizona before his body is taken to Washington for a viewing at the US Capitol, followed by burial at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
At the emotional private ceremony in Arizona, Governor Doug Ducey remembered McCain as an internationally known figure and “Arizona’s favorite adopted son” on what would have been his 82nd birthday.
He was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father, who went on to become an admiral, served in the military.
“Imagining an Arizona without John McCain is like picturing Arizona without the Grand Canyon,” Ducey said.
By the time the ceremony ended, crowds gathered for the public viewing of McCain’s closed casket, seeking shelter from Phoenix’s summer heat under tents stocked with coolers filled with ice and water.
Several heat injuries occurred late in the afternoon as the temperature reached a high of 41 C, and two people were taken to the hospital, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said.
Among the thousands waiting to glimpse McCain’s coffin was James Fine, 54, a Dallas funeral director who drove more than 1,600 kilometers to Phoenix to bid farewell to a man he called a “statesman”.
“I get up every day and read the news, and then I see what John McCain has to say,” Fine said. “They don’t make heroes like him anymore.”
On Thursday morning, a procession through Phoenix will bring the casket to a memorial service at a Baptist church, with the public invited to line the route along a highway. Former vice-president Joe Biden will speak.
McCain will then depart Arizona for another viewing on Friday at the US Capitol, with a final memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral, followed by burial at the academy.