GOP maverick showed duty, honor always
He was oft described as a maverick, a gadfly to those who thought they had him in their camp only to see him come down on an unexpected side of an issue, exhibiting an independence some regarded as betrayal. It was nothing of the sort. It was just John McCain letting everyone know that no one owned him, that his values were not for sale, that when push came to shove in the partisan world of politics he did not lack the courage of his convic- tions, ever ready to place his principles above his popularity.
That’s what political leaders are supposed to do, but so few of them actually do it. Indeed, their unspoken credo whispers “to get along, just go along, and worry about rationalizing it later.”
John McCain was different. This U.S. senator from Arizona brought a much different resume with him when he took his seat in 1987, far removed from the hellhole known as the “Hanoi Hilton,” which is what American POWs called Hanoi’s central Hoa Lo Prison.
When his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down over Hanoi in 1967, McCain sustained fractures to both arms and a leg while parachuting into True Bach Lake where he nearly drowned, only to be yanked ashore by North Vietnamese soldiers who then crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt while bayonetting him.
That was only the beginning of a torturous fiveyear nightmare in which he was regularly bound, beaten and untreated. Though his misery was unspeakable, he rejected offers of early release by captors hoping for favorable PR, insisting he would not leave until his fellow POWs were released, too.
This man who would become a senator from Arizona had lots of time to ponder the preciousness of freedom, especially during his two years of solitary confinement.
He no doubt came to revere it in a way few of us can.
For the rest of his life, even while combing his hair, he would be reminded of wartime injuries by a permanent inability to raise his arms above his head.
Though a Navy captain, McCain nevertheless personified those noble qualities Gen. Douglas MacArthur urged upon cadets at West Point: “Duty! Honor! Country!”
Politics? They’re cheap compared to John McCain’s patriotism.
Ronald Reagan had it right in suggesting those who say we’re in a time when there are no heroes just don’t know where to look.
Republicans, Democrats, it made no difference: When America looked at John McCain it saw a hero.
So God bless you, sir. May you know fair winds and following seas.