John Sidney McCain the third is a great American. I might have problems with him politically and I might end up not voting for him who knows but no one can say that he isn't a great American. There has been some liberal sites saying that he wasn't a great american and he betrayed his country. These statements are simply are not true as the Navy released all his records from his military carrer. He has been awarded 17 medals of honor and didn't throw them to the ground like some people at that time did. Heres a list of the medals that he earned by serving his country...
Silver Star Medal
Legion of Merit w/combat "V" and one gold star
Distingusied Flying Cross
Bronze Star Medal w/combact "V" and two gold stars
Purple Heart w/one gold star
Mertitorous Service Medal
Air Medal w/one bronze star and the Numeral "2"
Navy Commendation Medal w/combact "V" and one gold star
Combact Action Ribbon
Navy Unit Commendation
Meritiorious Unit Commendation
POW medal
National Defense Service Medal
Vietnam Service Medal w/ two bronze stars
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (Cuba)
Navy Expeditionary Medal (Cuba)
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal w/device
Look at all these rewards. He is truly a American Hero! Just look at him in that picture. They had to relaign all his bones because those Vietnamesse didn't set his bones correctly. Here is John McCain's story....
The date was October 26th 1967; he was on his 23rd mission and he flew above the heart of Hanoi. Then he said out of no where a Russian missle came up and the sky was full of them. This hit his plane and ended up blowing up his right wing. Then he started to crash and ended up parachuting to the ocean. When he landed in the ocean he broke both his arms and a leg. Also when he landed in the ocean he suck right to the bottom. Could you image sinking to the bottom of a ocean with both your legs broke and a arm broke. Well he said he didn't relize the pain he was in when he pushed off the bottom so he could reach air again. Just as he did this he sunk to the bottom. The reason he sunk again was he was wearing 50 pounds of gear. He managed to kick off the bottom again and reached the surface of the water. He was in a dazed condition. I went up to the top again and sank back down. This time I couldn't get back to the surface. I was wearing an inflatable life-preserver-type thing that looked like water wings. I reached down with my mouth and got the toggle between my teeth and inflated the preserver and finally floated to the top. The North Vietnamese swam out to him and pulled him to the shore. Once they went to the shore they stripped him. (Which is normal prodcure when they capture a Prision of War). This was in the middle of town so a huge group of people started swarming him and they were spitting, screaming and kicking a young John McCain. When they took his clothes off he started to feel a pain in his right knee. I sat up and looked at it, and my right foot was resting next to my left knee, just in a 90-degree position. I said, "My God--my leg!" That seemed to enrage them —I don't know why. One of them slammed a rifle butt down on my shoulder, and smashed it pretty badly. Another stuck a bayonet in my foot. The mob was really getting up-tight. About the same time a guy started screaming at them to leave him alone. A women came over and proped him up and gave him some tea to drink. This quieted the crowd up pretty quick. They put him on a strecher and put him on the ground of jail with just a towel on him. For the next three to four days he came in and out of conscious. During this time he was interrogated which he calls "quizzed". During those sessions of being quizzed he was informed of all the criminal charges they were accusing him of. He refused to give the interrogators anything but his name,rank, serial number and his birthday. They beat him up pretty good each day and he would not give in. They kept telling John that he will not recieve any medicial attention till he started answering their questions. He couldn't belive this and he believed that if he holded out for a while they would give in. During this time they gave him small bits of food and water. He could keep the water down but kept throwing the food back up. They wanted military information not political information. He wouldn't give in and this frustrated them.
He belives that on the forth day of being in prision two guards came in instead of one. They took the blanket off and one guard showed the other guard his knee. He said it was so swollen it was the size, color and shape of a football. Then he remembered that when he was a flying instructor a collegue had ejected himself from his plane and broken his thigh. He had gone into shock, the blood had pooled in his leg, and he died, which came as quite a surprise to us—a man dying of a broken leg. Then I realized that a very similar thing was happening to me. Then he relized that the same thing was happening to him. Then when he saw his knee like that he told a guard to get the officer. An officer came in a few minutes later. He was the guy they called "The bug" he was the psychotic torturer one of the worst that McCain had to deal with while in Vietnam. He said "O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital." He left and came back a few minutes later with a doctor who John calls "incompetent". He squatted down and took McCain's pulse. He didn't speak english. After he took his pulse he shook his head and said something to "the bug". John asked are u going to take me to the hospital? He said No its too late. Then John replied if you take me to the hospital I will get better. "Zorba" took my pulse again, and repeated, "It's too late." They got up and left, and I lapsed into unconsciousness. Sometime later, "The Bug" came rushing into the room, shouting, "Your father is a big admiral; now we take you to the hospital."He says he tells this story to make a point. The point is There were hardly any amputees among the prisoners who came back because the North Vietnamese just would not give medical treatment to someone who was badly injured—they weren't going to waste their time. For one thing, in the transition from the kind of life we lead in America to the filth and dirt and infection, it would be very difficult for a guy to live anyway. In fact, my treatment in the hospital almost killed me.
Heres the story of him in a hospital. He said that during the first 3-4 days in the hospital he woke up twice. The room wasn't small it was about 15 by 15; dirty as he** and that everytime it rained a half inch of rain would be on the floor. He almost never saw a doctor or a nurse and wasn't washed at all. When he did see a nurse or doctor they didn't speak english they spoke french. For a body guard he was assigned a 16 year old male right out of the rice fields. His favorite thing to do was read a book to the P.O.W that had a picture in it of a old man with his rifle in his hand and sitting on a fuselage of an F-105 which had been shot down. He then point to himself and laugh. After he was done laughing he would punch McCain. He had to feed John because his arms were still broken. He would come in with a cup that had noodles and some gristle in it, and fill a spoon and put it in my mouth. The gristle was very hard to chew. I'd get my mouth full after three or four spoonfuls, and I'd be chewing away on it. I couldn't take any more in my mouth, so he'd just eat the rest himself. I was getting about three or four spoonfuls of food twice a day. It got so that I kind of didn't give a damn—even though I tried as hard as I could to get enough to eat.
After being at the hospital for many days a "gook" (what we called the North Vietnamesse) came in who knew English very well. He asked me how I was doing? He said we have a frenchmen here visiting in Hanoi and is willing to take a message back to your family. He thought at the time what a great deal to tell them I am alive. At the time he admits being naive and that you get smarter when dealing with these people. He didn't know at the time but the Vietnamesse released McCain's name and started a huge propaganda splash and they were happy to catch "the crown prince".
A few hours after the meeting with the "gook" they took him on a strecher. They were trying
