John McCain is NOT a war hero!

John McCain is NOT a “War Hero”

Just recently, Republican political strategists and connected insiders were overjoyed when presidential candidate Donald Trump expressed the opinion that Senator John McCain was not a real “war hero.”  Trump said:  “He’s a war hero because he was captured?  I like people who weren’t captured.”

This comment immediately aroused a storm of controversy and outrage from predictable sources – the entrenched Republican Establishment represented by Karl Rove, and duped U.S. war veterans who have been sold the on-going lie that John McCain bravely endured torture for six years after he was shot down by the North Vietnamese in a bombing mission over Hanoi.

But what are the actual facts behind John McCain’s notoriety as a “war hero”?   The facts reveal a very different picture.

Graduating fifth from the bottom at the U.S. Naval Academy, and known as a “hot dog” – a hard-drinking, carousing party animal — John McCain, upon joining the U.S. Navy from the academy, piloted the only plane in his five plane squadron which was shot down on that particular sortie over North Vietnam.  According to fellow pilots, this occurred only because McCain flew below the specified ‘floor’ (altitude) on that particular mission, making him and his plane vulnerable to rocket attack.   This was not the first time McCain had lost an aircraft; in fact, McCain lost 5 other aircraft before this one, and one of the aircraft McCain lost was due, according to an official inquiry, because McCain had not maintained sufficient air speed to maintain altitude, but was instead focused on the wrong instruments.

And what of the tale of McCain enduring torture at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors?   Again, according to the men who actually ‘served’ with McCain at the Hanoi Hilton, McCain was accorded very special privileges, including ‘comfort women’ at night as soon as the North Vietnamese learned that he was the son of Navy Admiral John McCain.

Tellingly, John McCain’s ‘nickname’ while he was a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, bestowed upon him by his fellow POWs, was “Songbird.”   This curious moniker was apparently fitting and appropriate, as McCain, again according to his fellow POWs, earned it by “singing” to his captors, revealing U.S. secrets while making 32 propaganda films for them, in which he claimed that the U.S. military deliberately targeted and bombed schools, hospitals, orphanages and temples.  McCain admits to making “one” video.

But what of the torture McCain endured for six years at the hands of the North Vietnamese?   Again, according to his fellow POWs, McCain’s injuries were sustained from an improper escape from his jet when he ejected over North Vietnam.   According to his fellow inmates, McCain was never tortured, but instead, was accorded special privileges which none of the other POWs ever received, including private accommodations.

When John McCain was released and returned to civilian life, rather than enter the private sector as a businessman, he immediately ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, and after two terms, he ran for the U.S. Senate, where he has remained since 1986.  While in the Senate, McCain has repeatedly blocked all efforts requiring and demanding that North Vietnam provide information and details about reputed U.S. prisoners of war still being held captive there.  This curious behavior on the part of John McCain, a former U.S. POW, adds credence to the claims that McCain is being blackmailed with the numerous propaganda films he narrated for the North Vietnamese while in captivity.  Indeed, McCain has been the Number One advocate for extending recognition and trade to the former government of North Vietnam while ignoring the pleas of the families of suspected captive POWs still missing in action.

McCain has never campaigned with any of his former Hanoi Hilton inmates, nor has he ever received their endorsement.  He makes empty promises (“Just build the dang fence”) that he forgets as soon as he is re-elected to Congress.   He fights for supposed “immigration reform” (The Gang of Eight) while creating an express pathway to citizenship for people who have criminally violated our laws by illegally entering our country, all the while calling people who want the U.S. to abide by the rule of its own laws as “crazies.”  He was implicated in the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal in 1989 but escaped prosecution by feigning ignorance of the mendacity of Charles Keating — a claim that his critics admit fits his character.

And what of John McCain’s “character”?   In the interests of fairness, I will allow someone else, Theodore Shoebat of Rescue Christians, to have the last word regarding Senator John McCain: “John McCain is a giant bag of scum; his mouth is a continual sewer of bile, his heart is a decayed rot of dung, his mind a river of filth, and his soul is amongst the damned. He is nothing but a murderous scumbag. His evils are so great, that the words of Trump don’t even bother me. McCain is a demon incarnate. His service in Vietnam does nothing to justify the evils he has supported and pushed for.”

Was John McCain a genuine “war hero”?  Unfortunately for Senator McCain, an examination of the facts of his incarceration and his track record while in the U.S. Senate paint a very different picture.

LCVincent

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