MCsames Military record?
Most of the major media outlets find it impossible to publish a story about McCain which doesn’t include the phrase “war hero” in it somewhere. If you know anything about John McCain, it’s that he’s a war hero. But is he?
McCain’s reputation as a war hero rests on the sum total of 20 hours in combat. That’s right. McCain spent only 20 hours in combat in the entire war. He flew 23 missions. He got 28 medals. In other words, he got more medals than he had missions. Not bad. It should be noted that none of McCain’s medals related to anything he did in combat. They were given for the supposed bravery he displayed after he had been shot down and captured.
It’s appropriate to ask whether McCain’s shoot-down was caused by bad luck or simple incompetence on his part. Of course, there is no way to answer definitively. But we can form an assessment based on the rest of McCain’s military record. At the Naval Academy, McCain graduated almost bottom of his class. He was 790th out of 795. McCain lost many aircraft over the course of his military career – five in total. Most pilots who lost aircraft at the rate McCain did would have been kicked out of the service. But McCain had protection from up on high. His father was an admiral. He was an untouchable. So McCain blundered his way through his military career until he was finally shot down.
McCain claims that he was tortured while in custody. There were no other American witnesses to this torture and some former POWs doubt that it happened at all. In fact, McCain himself admitted in a 1973 interview with the magazine US News and World Report that he volunteered to give military information in return for medical treatment, even before being subjected to any torture.
There are two ways to look at the torture claims. Either McCain is lying about it – in which case he’s unfit to be president; or he’s telling the truth – in which case he’s unfit to be president. Why? Because torture is one of those experiences, like being abused as a child, which inflicts permanent psychological damage.
Many of America’s veterans from the Korean and Vietnamese wars suffered lingering psychological trauma from their wartime experience. The rate is even higher among former prisoners of war (POWs). One study found that 85% of POWs who had been tortured experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Was McCain one of the 85% or was he one of the lucky 15%?
There is every reason to suspect that McCain suffered deep-seated psychological trauma while a prisoner of war. He himself says that he was “reduced to an animal” and “broken”. He signed confessions – “I am a black criminal and have performed the deeds of an air pirate” - and made broadcasts denouncing his own country and its actions in the war. In fact, so great was his propensity to tell his captors what they wanted to hear, that, in the camp, McCain acquired the name of “Songbird”.
Bear in mind that McCain’s medals were awarded for resisting torture. Yet where was the resistance? Perhaps it is this gulf between the perception and the reality of John McCain that explains why so many Vietnam veterans’ groups openly despise him.
However much pity we might feel for a prisoner of war subjected to such intense pressures, the record is clear : McCain was no war hero. He was, rather, a coward, an incompetent, a collaborator and a traitor.
You don’t have to subscribe to the fully-fledged “Manchurian Candidate” hypothesis to fear that the long term psychological effects of McCain’s imprisonment make him unfit to be president. In McCain’s own words from his book Flags of our Fathers “solitary confinement causes some mental deterioration in even the most resilient personalities”. McCain later admitted that he was so ashamed of his own capitulation that he tried to commit suicide twice. Psychologists who evaluated McCain upon his return said that he had grown used to living in a fantasy world. When the camp guards came with food, he “was often so much in his private world, that he strongly resented their coming around and bringing him back to reality by intruding. He was enjoying his fantasies so much.”
So did McCain suffer psychological damage from his experience? To answer this, we’d need full access to McCain’s medical records, including the psychological evaluations he was subjected to after returning from Vietnam. Unfortunately, that access has never been granted. During his previous unsuccessful run for the presidency, the McCain campaign allowed only a few select journalists to briefly have access to a partial and redacted version of McCain’s medical history.
For years McCain has been known for his powderkeg temper. Many people, including even his own Republican colleagues, have seen the dark side of the man, which tends to manifest itself in the form of an almost hysterical anger, as he shouts and curses at those he disagrees with. Sometimes, McCain returns afterwards to apologise for his outbursts, showing that he had lost control of himself. Passion is no doubt commendable in a presidential candidate. But is that all it is? It seems much more likely that his angry bursts of temper are really manifestations of the lingering psychological fractures he suffered in the Vietnam war. Does America really need an unstable, psychologically stressed “war hero” to have his finger on the nuclear button?
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