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John McCain Has a Bizarre History of Hiding Evidence About His Fellow POWs

By Sydney H. Schanberg, The Nation Institute. Posted September 22, 2008.


McCain has worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home.
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Research support provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute; a longer version of this article is available at nationinstitute.org.

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero people would logically imagine to be a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as McCain has made his military service and POW history the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War have also turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a Special Forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington and even sworn testimony by two defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number -- probably hundreds -- of the US prisoners held in Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.

The Pentagon had been withholding significant information from POW families for years. What's more, the Pentagon's POW/MIA operation had been publicly shamed by internal whistleblowers and POW families for holding back documents as part of a policy of "debunking" POW intelligence even when the information was obviously credible. The pressure from the families and Vietnam veterans finally produced the creation, in late 1991, of a Senate "Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs." The chair was John Kerry, but McCain, as a POW, was its most pivotal member. In the end, the committee became part of the debunking machine.

Included in the evidence that McCain and his government allies suppressed or tried to discredit is a transcript of a senior North Vietnamese general's briefing of the Hanoi Politburo, discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar in the 1990s. The briefing took place only four months before the 1973 peace accords. The general, Tran Van Quang, told the Politburo members that Hanoi was holding 1,205 American prisoners but would keep many of them at war's end as leverage to ensure getting reparations from Washington.

Throughout the Paris negotiations, the North Vietnamese tied the prisoner issue tightly to the issue of reparations. Finally, in a February 1, 1973, formal letter to Hanoi's premier, Pham Van Dong, Nixon pledged $3.25 billion in "postwar reconstruction" aid. The North Vietnamese, though, remained skeptical about the reparations promise being honored (it never was). Hanoi thus held back prisoners -- just as it had done when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and withdrew their forces from Vietnam. France later paid ransoms for prisoners and brought them home.

Two defense secretaries who served during the Vietnam War testified to the Senate POW committee in September 1992 that prisoners were not returned. James Schlesinger and Melvin Laird, secretaries of defense under Nixon, said in a public session and under oath that they based their conclusions on strong intelligence data -- letters, eyewitness reports, even direct radio contacts. Under questioning, Schlesinger chose his words carefully, understanding clearly the volatility of the issue: "I think that as of now that I can come to no other conclusionsome were left behind."

Furthermore, over the years, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) received more than 1,600 firsthand reports of sightings of live American prisoners and nearly 14,000 secondhand accounts. Many witnesses interrogated by CIA or Pentagon intelligence agents were deemed "credible" in the agents' reports. Some of the witnesses were given lie-detector tests and passed. Sources provided me with copies of these witness reports. Yet the DIA, after reviewing them all, concluded that they "do not constitute evidence" that men were still alive.

There is also evidence that in the first months of Reagan's presidency, the White House received a ransom proposal for a number of POWs being held by Hanoi. The offer, which was passed to Washington from an official of a third country, was apparently discussed at a meeting in the Roosevelt Room attended by Reagan, Vice President George H.W. Bush, CIA director William Casey and National Security Adviser Richard Allen. Allen confirmed the offer in sworn testimony to the Senate POW committee on June 23, 1992.

Allen was allowed to testify behind closed doors, and no information was released. But a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter, Robert Caldwell, obtained the portion of the testimony relating to the ransom offer and wrote about it. The ransom request was for $4 billion, Allen testified. He said he told Reagan that "it would be worth the president going along and let's have the negotiation." When his testimony appeared in the Union-Tribune, Allen quickly wrote a letter to the panel, this time not under oath, recanting the ransom story, saying his memory had played tricks on him.


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Sydney H. Schanberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, has since 1959 been a reporter and columnist for the New York Times, Newsday and the Village Voice. He has reported extensively on the POW story.

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McCain's lies about his POW experience explains why he "misremembers" things
Posted by: NoMcCainPalin on Sep 22, 2008 1:01 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The following text was copied from the nonprofit Web site, www.UnfitMcCain.com. The extraction is an example of McCain exploiting his war record for political gain.

On July 9, 2008, McCain was interviewed for a Pittsburgh radio broadcast by KDKA Political Editor, Jon Delano.

During the broadcast, McCain told Delano that he had recited the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive line-up to his North Vietnamese captors as aliases for the names of his Navy squadron mates.

McCain added that he "naturally recalls" the football team whenever he thinks of Pittsburgh.

Said McCain to Delano, “The Steelers really made a huge impression on me -- particularly in their early years."

"When I was first interrogated," continued McCain, "and had to give some information
because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup of the
Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!"

That sounds good, but it wasn’t what McCain said in his 1999 autobiography, Faith of Our Fathers. On page 194 of the hardcopy edition, he wrote, “Eventually, I gave them [NVA interrogators] my ship’s name and squadron, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packer’s offense line, and said they were members of my squadron.”

McCain supporters will probably say he “misremembered” the NFL football team because his POW experience happened nearly 40 years ago. But how do they explain what he wrote in an article for U.S. News & World Report, published on May 14, 1973?

In the detailed, 12,000-word piece, McCain, whose memory had to be super sharp back then,
never mentioned using the names of NFL players during his NVA interrogations, even though
the deception would have mitigated the seriousness of his confessions.

One possible explanation for McCain's 1973 omission is that he never told the names of NFL players to the North Vietnamese. Conceivably, the story was a fantasy he created for his autobio, to make him appear heroic while campaigning for the White House in 2000. If so, it also explains why he later "misremembered" the Steelers.


End of the UnfitMcCain.com extract,

Thanks to AlterNet, its revelations of McCain's shameful POW record makes clear he is unfit to serve as president of the United States and its commander-in-chief.

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How Obama can defeat McCain without attacking his POW record
Posted by: NoMcCainPalin on Sep 22, 2008 1:14 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
McCain's Achilles heel is his advanced age, not what happened in North Vietnam 40 years ago.

In an article published in June 2008 by Military.com, former POW Phillip Butler, a Navy pilot and U.S. Naval Academy graduate who spent more than eight years in North Vietnam as a prisoner of war, explained why he would not support McCain for the presidency.

"Most of us who survived that experience [being a POW] are now in our late 60’s and 70’s. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John’s age (71) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for four or more years."

There are many Republicans that share Butler's concerns, as do white Democrats who won't vote for Obama because he's black. But no matter how well he argues his case, those people will NEVER support him. So Barack must get them to vote AGAINST McCain or not vote at all.

That goal can be accomplished with a simple slogan: "John McCain -- OLD ideas, OLD solutions."

Notice I never mentioned his age (72), but the message comes through loud and clear. And should the GOP complain about the inference, it will only bolster suspicions that McCain's best days are behind him.

If you agree with my assessment, tell your friends and family members while there's still time to defeat McCain -- a pandering politician who truly has old ideas, old solutions.

John McCain -- OLD ideas, OLD solutions

One more thing, If you think the slogan would be effective, contact the Democratic National Committee with this link -- Contact DNC -- then copy & paste the bold text below into the Question box. NOTE: the link works slowly.

To help Senator Obama win in November, please use the following slogan in his TV ads: "John McCain -- OLD ideas, OLD solutions"

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Foo me... What?
Posted by: mn1234 on Sep 22, 2008 2:22 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
McCain, a Republican, actually has a chance in wining the Presidency. After all what the Republicans have done to America, and Americans, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the banking melt down (sponsored by McCain’s friend and economic counsellor, who, as senator from Texas, was the prime Republican force pushing through the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which repealed the old Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited a commercial bank from being in the investment and insurance business) are about to vote in another Republican! The democrats are no better, but I would have thought it was time to get rid of the right wing warmongers and start putting America on a correct path. But no, Americans have not learned anything.

I guess a third line is needed on this old adage:

“FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU!”

“FOOL ME TWICE, SHAME ON ME!”

“FOOL ME THRICE, I MUST BE A REAL FUCKEN EDIOT!!!”

An update to this saying I feel exemplifies Americans exactly.

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Our choices
Posted by: trel on Sep 22, 2008 4:58 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Not that the president of the U.S. has any real power, but the two choices set before us this time is rediculous.
A burned out POW whose nickname in Vietnam was "Songbird McCain, or a dyed in wool communist in Barak Husein Mohammed "Obamba" Obama.
No matter which one ends up in the oval office, we lose.

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Cheney's Perfected Manchurian Candidate
Posted by: Purple Girl on Sep 22, 2008 5:14 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Let's See Mac is
As Psychologically unbalanced as Nixon
As Confused and Forgetful aa Reagan Near the End of his 2nd Term
As Much of a Pussy towards Cheney as HW
As Arrogant, Self Promoting and Ignorant as W.

McCain is Cheney's Wet Dream come True....Mac already said he'd be happy to have Cheney on his Team..No Shit Asshole He's YOUR BOSS!!

But Mac adds a little more kick to the Brew- He Gets a Hard on when anyone mentions WAR.
"War" is Mac's Viagra!
This has to be the most dangerous of All of Cheney's Manufactured Front men..Even in his 'right mind' Mac is fully indoctrinated and on Board with CheneyCorp!

BENDICT ARNOLD WAS A GENERAL IN THE US MILITARY!!!!WE HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO EVALUATED AND QUESTION MACS 'PATRIOTISM'!Our History Tells US So!
As far as I'm concerned Mac is already guilty of TREASON (Banking Scandals) and WAR CRIMES ( 'Anthrax came from Iraq'- resulting in 4000+ Killed or ?? who have committed Suicide of OUR KIDS/HUSBANDS/WIVES/FAMILY/FRIENDS.AND HOW MANY ...POSS 1 MILLION INNOCENT IRAQI'S?!? ALL FOR THE SAUDI'S WHO WANT TO CONTROL THE REGION,.... ADD CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY!!!!

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bizarre claims
Posted by: HighburyJD on Sep 22, 2008 5:23 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I've been to vietnam many times
the idea that american prisoners are secretly held somewhere is comical to the point of insanity

poor america being picked on and bullied by vietnam
bizarre

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» Read the article! Posted by: IntnsRed
» RE: bizarre claims Posted by: Karl.Ben
» Good point, Karl Posted by: NoMcCainPalin
» RE: bizarre claims Posted by: roseshavethorns
He needs to be asked about this every day.
Posted by: weslen1 on Sep 22, 2008 6:33 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
He needs to be chided, non stop about this. At every stop he makes where he brings up his HERO status someone should tell him, if he's a "hero" release his records, release the proof, and if he can't back up his version of the story he should just shut up.
It is the heights of treason and dishonor to leave a fellow soldier behind unless you absolutely HAVE to and many men have given their own lives to bring their fellow soldiers home. If John McCain would not ONLY leave them behind with no conscience and systematically work to keep them there and allow them to die there because of some agreement with his "captors" then he is a traitor masquerading as a "patriot". Go after him people. Go after him press. Let's HAMMER him about this every day through November. And let's ridicule him all along the way for his utter disrespect and contempt for those families who's loved ones were NEVER returned. You don't systematically abuse you power to STOP a legitimate investigation unless YOU ARE GUILTY OF THE CRIME. Just the other day McCain was saying that he resented losing his special privileges in that "Hanoi Hilton" when he was forced to stop cooperating with the "enemy". He informed on his fellow men and has not one iota of conscience about their fate.

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Opportunity calling...screaming!!!
Posted by: Knowmad on Sep 22, 2008 7:46 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as McCain has made his military service and POW history the focus of his presidential campaign."

Do you thinking Americans recognise the huge opportunity here? If you can somehow get this into the mainstream media - particularly the video about mccain's traitorous activities from yesterday's 'Republicans Allege McCain Covered Up His Collaboration with the North Vietnamese While a POW' article here, it just might be a total game changer.

The average mccain supporter is simply a normal GOPer who is so trusting/gullible that they believe the lies they're told, or too lazy or not thoughtful enough or to check the facts. However, what most of them also are is hugely patriotic - often to a fault. And you know how patriotism reacts with traitorous conduct: like matter and anti-matter. If the mccain loyals hear about this enough, especially from other republicans - as many from yesterday's video were - you just might get a massive explosion of change of mind or heart that would finally sink this insane and dangerous doddering-old war criminal and the ridiculous morally-challenged "bucket of fluff" he's panting over lately.

So, if you want to help but don't know how, get some of your peers together, make up simple signs and get down to your local TV station. Don't do anything illegal, just walk around with your sign. And don't react to what the deniers will undoubtedly yell at you. Just keep walking around and let the sign do the talking. Maybe it could say something like: "McCain for country?
Check what republicans say." or "Mccain a traitor? See for yourself." Have slips of paper to pass out with instructions on how to access yesterday's video; maybe even make up a bunch of DVD's to give out...whatever. Just keep at it and and eventually it'll get picked up somehow. Maybe a brave technician will slip it in, or a discouraged station manager somewhere will stand up to his/her corporate owners and screen it; or at least tell people how to get at it.

It will likely take only a few blind patriots who see and believe the video and spread the word for it to catch fire. And once it does, stand back, you could be buried in the debris of the collapsing mccain campaign/scam.

Good luck.

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A special response to the previous post by HighburyJD titled, “Bizarre claims.”
Posted by: NoMcCainPalin on Sep 22, 2008 8:38 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wrote HighburyJD, “I've been to Vietnam many times. The idea that American prisoners are secretly held somewhere is comical to the point of insanity."

To rebut HighburyJD’s baseless allegation, the following text was extracted from the nonprofit Web site, www.UnfitMcCain.com.

For reasons many Vietnam vets don't understand, Senator McCain took an unrelenting position that no living POWs were left behind in 1973, when he was freed.

Quite the contrary, there is evidence that indicates at least one U.S. serviceman, MIA Kelly Patterson, may have been held captive after McCain’s release and could still be alive.

The first clue comes from the following Internet report:

“Lt. Cmdr. McDaniel [Petterson’s aircraft commander] was captured early the morning of 20 May 1967 and was transported by his captors to Hanoi. While a POW, McDaniel was told by a prison guard known as 'Onizz' that his bombardier/navigator [Patterson] had recovered from his injury and was well.”

“Other POWs who returned during Operation Homecoming in 1973 saw evidence that Lt. Patterson was also a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. Dewey Smith saw an interrogation questionnaire with Kelly Patterson's name written on the top of it in the fall of 1967, another POW saw his name scratched on the wall of his jail cell, and POW Ron Mastin believes he saw a photo of Patterson's ID card in a Vietnamese newspaper that same year.”

In November 1985, the Vietnamese turned over Patterson’s ID card and Geneva Convention card in good condition to a Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC) delegation.

In December 1990, in an attempt to satisfy questions asked about Patterson’s fate, the Vietnamese brought before U.S. investigators four “witnesses” who claimed to have been militiamen involved in the search for Patterson and his aircraft commander, Red McDaniel.

The militiamen said they shot Patterson to death when he stood up with a pistol in his hand. However, as Patterson reported over his survival radio to friendly aircraft in the area, he had suffered a compound leg fracture during bailout. So standing up would have been impossible for him to do.

In May 1992, Patterson’s alleged burial site was thoroughly excavated by a joint U.S./Vietnamese field team. The dig showed no trace of human remains. Moreover, soil examinations proved conclusively the strata in that location had never been disturbed by man.

In sum, the Vietnamese account that Patterson had been killed on the ground must be disbelieved because it was clearly a self-serving attempt to keep secret his fate as a captured and highly prized A-6A Intruder bombardier/navigator.

His interrogators would have eventually learned he was an expert on the Intruder’s state-of-the-art electronics used with great success against North Vietnam’s Russian-made missile defense system. The technical knowledge possessed by Patterson was exactly the kind of information the Soviets wanted. The North Vietnamese would have been foolish not to give Patterson to the Russians in return for continued war support. Of course, that was something Vietnamese officials
could never admit -- not then, not now. Hence the cover-up.

A reasonable person would think it was entirely possible that Kelly Patterson had been captured in North Vietnam and handed over to Soviet authorities but not John McCain.

During the 1992 Senate Select Committee hearings on MIAs, Red McDaniel presented a letter to McCain for his consideration. Signed by 50 fellow POWs, it asked that the congressional investigation into missing American servicemen not be stopped.

McCain, who had threatened to terminate the hearings prematurely, ignored the letter.

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whatever
Posted by: Nasookin on Sep 22, 2008 9:01 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you want to know the real story read:
"Kiss the Boys Goodbye"
by Monika Jensen-Stevenson & William Stevenson, McClelland & Stewart, 1990

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imo Schanberg needs quotes from fellow Senate Committee members
Posted by: whealeydj on Sep 22, 2008 9:40 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
on whether McCain helped Richard Nixon and George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan administrations coverup the purported 600 MIAs who might have been POWs. I have been skeptical of claims of Nixon adminstrations left POWs behind and remain so because of the emotional wishful thinking that has kept this issue alive; 1980s movies like Uncommon Valor and Chuck Norris and Sylvestor Stallone vehicles made this belief more widespread . As I recall the early 1990s Sen Smith of NH (who became too radical right for the Republicans for awhile) was main person in DC pushing abandoned POW theory. Who were the Democrats on this committee and what do they have to say then or now about Nixon, Reagan and GHW Bush's part in coverup? Schanberg quotes Schlesinger and Laird but what did staff and committee members think of their testimony?
I remain quite skeptical of contemporary claims by North Vietnamese at Paris Peace Conference they had 1200 plus rather than 591 they ultimately released. They had incentive to exagerrate the number they had detained

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John Kerry,Tom Daschle,Harry Reid,Chuck Robb,Bob Kerrey,
Posted by: whealeydj on Sep 22, 2008 9:56 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Herb Kohl,Hank Brown ,Nancy Kassebaum and Jesse Helms were on the 91-92 POW MIA committee with McCain. Many are still alive; what is their reaction to The Nation article? Bob Smith has been beating this abandoned POW drum for many years but how about the rest of Senators?

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NONE OF THIS MATTERS IF
Posted by: cwilsondrum on Sep 22, 2008 10:04 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
you will be voting on a hackable piece of shit made by diebold or any number of republican front men. get it? NO MATTER HOW YOU VOTE IF THEY CONTROL THE MACHINE YOU LOSE

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No great leap
Posted by: Quasar on Sep 22, 2008 10:43 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Although I have never been a prisoner of war much less fought in one, it is no greap leap to imagine the disgrace one must feel for "breaking". That other prisoners heard his confesisons daily is probably small beans compared to the knowledge that his father knew as well.

If he is unfit to lead now it is not because he "broke", but because a person so disgraced should not have the arrogrance to wish to lead a nation.

Some might call that dishonorable.

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JUDAS ALERT: Bill Clinton pimped for John McCain today on "The View"
Posted by: NoMcCainPalin on Sep 22, 2008 11:35 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I watched Clinton appear on the "The View" today with my wife. Not surprisingly, Slick Willie failed to attack Senator McCain. Instead, he, Clinton, damn near endorsed the senile Manchurian Candidate.

There is no doubt in my mind now that Bill wants Obama to lose the election so his wife can run again in 2012.

For readers who have forgotten what President Clinton is all about, he's the self-serving, womanizing, greedy bastard who pushed NAFTA and took $500,000 from the Arabs for a weekend's work lobbying for Dubai's takeover of our major seaports.

The slimy son of a bitch should crawl back to Hope, Arkansas, and hide under a rock where he belongs.

-----------------------------------------------

John McCain -- OLD ideas, OLD solutions

If you think the above slogan has legs, please contact the Democratic National Committee with this link -- Contact DNC -- then copy & paste the bold text below into the Question box. NOTE: the link works slowly.

To help Senator Obama win in November, please use the following slogan in his TV ads: "John McCain -- OLD ideas, OLD solutions"

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More of the same
Posted by: Bushmaster on Sep 22, 2008 2:47 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is sick. But it is U.S. policy which means U.S. policy is sick and it means that if McCain wins that sickness will be further institutionalized.

Right now this country is being taken over completely. The meltdown of the financial institutions is, very likely, by plan and is in accord with the 'Shock Doctrine' Milton Friedman has promoted and which is official policy for the U.S. government.

We're only pawns in their game.

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An enormous crime
Posted by: mikeusmc on Sep 22, 2008 8:34 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Bill Hendon's book, An Enormous Crime, is clearly the most comprehensive and compelling book available on the subject. The insistance, by the government and it's various agencies, that there is no evidence to indicate that US servicemen were left behind after Operation Home Coming, is utterly absurd.
The inescapable fact of the matter is that our government has a long standing history of abandoning US military personnel who fall into enemy hands. Tens of thousands were simply declared dead after German POW/concentration camps were overrun by the communists at the end of WWII (see Philip Corso's testimony in open session of the Senate Committee on POW/MIA's). Hundreds were left to their fate at the end of hostilities in Korea (reference the case of Roger Dumas). The fact that our government refuses to declassify tens of thousands of documents relating to POW/MIA's of the Vietnam War is stark indication of how dishonest their position on the subject really is.
The refusal to allow agent John Syphrit to testify can only be seen as an effort to keep the truth from the American public.

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Climb up on the cross, Johnboy
Posted by: Ellen Remore on Sep 22, 2008 9:36 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This article was, for me, an emotional land mine. In the spring of '72, my first husband, a carrier pilot, failed to return to the USS Coral Sea after a bombing mission. He was given MIA status for eight years, until in 1980, the Defense Department changed his status to KIA.

Throughout those years, hoping he might be in some POW hellhole, but still alive, I was given exactly zero information about him by the Navy, the Pentagon, or the Nixon / Ford / Carter administrations. After he was declared dead, however, a lawyer who was active in the National League of Families used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain for me any and all evidence pertaining to my husband's case. One day I was presented with a cardboard box, about the size of boxes containing a case of liquor, filled with reams of badly-copied pages, enumerating possible sightings of my husband by former POWs given during their debriefing. However, not only was the print barely legible; huge sections of it were blacked out. So the one thing this carton of so-called information unmistakably conveyed was the blatant determination of the US military to play dumb about the possiblity of American servicemen still being held in Vietnam. (Illustrating this attitude is the military's failure to ever having provided a detailed account of Jane Fonda's visit to the Hanoi Hilton.) Thus it doesn't surprise me in the least that John McCain, a third-generation Naval officer, may know a good deal more about POWs than he's letting on. Which I find, to put it mildly, quite disturbing. It also disturbs me that he recounts, ad nauseam, his ordeal in Hanoi as if it were unique. Which gives me yet another reason to regard him as an unscrupulous liar.

I am long since remarried, but I can tell you that the experience of having your husband simply disappear into the Southeast Asian ether will stick in your gut and haunt you
all the way to your deathbed. And learning that McCain has mocked and belittled the tenacity of our lost men's families is not only appalingly tasteless; it is downright cruel. Putting it bluntly, I sincerely hope the bastard dies in pain, in despair, and in the knowledge that nobody will miss him.

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So the medals are a little tarnished, eh Once upon a time
Posted by: 60sretread on Sep 23, 2008 12:27 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
there was a military hero who ran for president but some bad people "swiftboated him" unfairly & he lost. Could the same thing happen again? Do chickens really come home to roost. All I know is that the Manchurian Candidate movies-yes both of them should be watched again this election year

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War hero?
Posted by: FlowerGirl on Sep 25, 2008 4:09 AM   
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Tell me... what makes McCain a war hero?

Is it because his plane got shot down? Is it because his father was an Admiral? Is it because he had crashed his plane on five separate occasions? Is it because he graduated at the bottom of his class in the Naval Academy? Is it because he gave so much information to his captors that his fellow POWs dubbed him "canary"? Is it because he's been riding the coattails of being a POW without any merit? Is it because of his outrageous bad temper? Is it because, as a tortured former POW himself, that he spiritedly supported the torture of possible terror suspects of Guantanamo Bay?

As far as I can tell, there's really no reason, except that being a POW is the only notable "qualification" that he has. I mean, since he's gotten more press that any of his fellow POWs - many of them who had been there much longer than McCain - that still doesn't make him a war hero. If his father and grandfather weren't high-ranking Admirals in the Navy, do you think that anyone would even notice him?

Stop throwing around the words "war" and "hero" when talking about McCain. He's been resting on his laurels for far too long that everyone has forgotten what a inept politician he is, and has been excessively using his POW status in his campaign to try to propel him to the forefront to get more votes.

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