A NAVY MAN FOR ETERNITY
Nixed Arlington for burial at Annapolis next to best friend
He was a maverick until the end. John McCain will not be laid to rest alongside his four-star-admiral father and grandfather in Arlington National Cemetery — because the war hero wanted to be buried next to his best friend at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, where his remarkable career began in 1958.
McCain, who died on Saturday at 81, will spend eternity with his buddy and former classmate and retired Adm. Charles “Chuck” Larson overlooking the Severn River where, he wrote in his most recent book, “our paths first crossed.”
“I want to watch the hawks hunt from the sycamore, and then take my leave bound for a place near my old friend Chuck Larson, in the cemetery on the Severn, back where it began,” he wrote in “The Restless Wave.”
McCain reportedly spent the past year planning his funeral as he battled brain cancer. The senator will be buried in Annapolis on Sunday.
The six-term senator’s body will lie in state in the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix on Wednesday — on what would have been his 82nd birthday — and the Capitol Rotunda in DC this week before a full dress service at the Washington National Cathedral.
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have been asked to deliver eulogies at the funeral on Saturday. McCain didn’t want President Trump to attend.
“I want, when I leave, that the ceremony is at the Naval Academy. And we just have a couple of people that stand up and say, ‘This guy, he served his country,’ ” McCain told “60 Minutes” last year.
McCain had grown up in a highranking Navy family, following his father to various posts, but didn’t distinguish himself at the academy — often breaking the rules and grad- uating 894th in his class of 899.
His pal Larson (inset right), on the e other hand, was a hardworking student who graduated at the top of the class, McCain recalled in his book.
The two went to flight training after graduation and earned their wings together before their careers s diverged when Larson joined the submarine service, and both went off to fight separately in Vietnam.
Larson would later twice serve as s
the academy’s superintendent and naval aide to President Richard Nixon, and ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of Maryland in 2002 — as a Democrat. He invited McCain back in 1997 to lecture recruits at the academy, where the Arizona sensenator regaled tthem with a storstory of the time the young mids mid shipmen men th re threw a huge partparty at McCain’s parents’ents’ home and “completely destroyed” st roy ed” the place, accord-acc ing to The Washington Post.
“If it was me, my mom would have killed me,” McCain said. “But with Charles, my mother said, ‘Oh, it was Chuck? That’s OK.’ ”
Larson died in 2014 at age 77 and was buried at the academy’s cemetery, where McCain’s plot was marked out Saturday, according to The Arizona Republic.
One officer said it was “only fitting” for McCain to return to that spot.
“He’s so loved here and celebrated,” Navy Lt. Raymond Dennis told the paper. “I’m sure everyone here will want to maintain that closeness with McCain and his legacy.”
Despite McCain’s relatively humble final resting place, lying in the Capitol Rotunda is an honor reserved for America’s most eminent citizens. Others to share the honor include former presidents, civil-rights activist Rosa Parks and the Rev. Billy Graham.
A black hearse accompanied by a police motorcade transported McCain’s body from his family ranch in Cornville, Ariz., to Phoenix on Saturday night, as flagwaving residents lined the 50mile route to pay their respects.
Around 200 people also gathered outside the A.L. Moore-Grimshaw Mortuary, with some chanting, “I love you John!”
“Senator #JohnMcCain will lie in state here at the Arizona Capitol this Wednesday — his birthday,” Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey tweeted Sunday. “This is a rare and distinct occurrence for a truly special man.”
Vice President Mike Pence is likely to attend the ceremony instead of Trump, officials said.
McCain had his clashes with Bush and Obama, but the late senator was “quick to forgive,” Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake noted Sunday.
“These were bitter contests, both of them,” Flake told CBS’s “Face the Nation. “To ask them to speak at your funeral, and for them to be honored at the opportunity, that tells you all you need to know.”