John McCain, American hero

We use the term “hero” way too often these days. You’re not a hero if you join the police department, or the fire department, or the military. You have to DO something besides being a member to earn that title. John McCain and his band of brothers certainly did that during his five-year stay at the infamous Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War. He was captured injured after his jet crashed and then subjected to regular beatings, interrogations, and attempted brainwashing on a daily basis after his capture but it was all for nothing as far as the North Vietnamese were concerned. Nothing worked on McCain.

As the beatings diminished and then finally stopped, McCain was offered an early release back home after it was discovered his dad was a high ranking officer in the Navy but McCain refused. He insisted he would be released based on the first captured, first released protocol and he never wavered from that position. He later recalled that the five years he spent in captivity with his band of brothers were the most important five years of his life because it taught him what honor and decency were all about.

McCain was a rounder as a young man, choosing to party rather than study at the Naval Academy which resulted in his finishing 5th from the bottom of his class. But the Navy ran deep in his blood from his father and grandfather’s legacy and that would never be forgotten by him.

Donald Trump said during his Presidential campaign he didn’t like John McCain because he was captured and he preferred those who didn’t get captured. This came from a man who escaped serving in the Vietnam War because of a bone spur. I suspect Mr. Trump doesn’t know what a true hero is either.

Most people agree that Mr. Trump took that position because McCain, a Republican, didn’t always go along with either Trump or Republican ideology but that should not have been seen as a negative. He served in the Senate where compromise was employed just as often as orthodoxy because the goal of elected officials back then was to serve the people rather than themselves or the party.

That’s no longer true. Supporters of Trump today support him unconditionally. He can do no wrong even when he DOES wrong, which is often. And it’s a two-way street. Democrats seem to be just as dug in as Republicans are and so nothing meaningful gets done in Congress because of that.

John McCain was a negotiator and a mediator. He wasn’t perfect and from time to time ended up totally on the wrong side with the Keating scandal as a prime example. He said that was his biggest mistake and the one he was most sorry for. But even then he did it in good conscience based on the information he had at the time, even though it turned out to be a terrible decision. He always put his country first and ruffled many Republican feathers from time to time because of it.

He did so because he was trying to be a good American instead of a good Republican. Those people are few and far between today. We can understand how the disenfranchised can be attracted to Trump because of his desire to do everything his way instead of the right way but it’s harder to understand how educated and otherwise intelligent people can make the same decision. To be an educated intellectual while turning a blind eye to the daily shenanigans pulled by the President seems is counter-intuitive to me.

We lost a patriot and a devoted and dedicated public servant when John McCain died and he will not be replaced. He often quoted a passage by Ernest Hemingway written in “For Whom the Bells Toll” that I’ll close this column with.

“The world is a fine place, worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”