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| quote: | Vietnam operations
McCain's combat duty began when he was thirty years old. In Spring 1967, Forrestal was assigned to join Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing campaign against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.[13][26] McCain and his fellow pilots were frustrated by Rolling Thunder's infamous micromanagement from Washington;[27] he would later write that "The target list was so restricted that we had to go back and hit the same targets over and over again.... Most of our pilots flying the missions believed that our targets were virtually worthless. In all candor, we thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots who didn’t have the least notion of what it took to win the war."[26]
By then a Lieutenant Commander, McCain was almost killed in action on July 29, 1967, while serving on Forrestal, operating in the Gulf of Tonkin. He was at the epicenter of the Forrestal fire, when a rocket accidentally fired across the carrier's deck and hit planes, including McCain's which had been waiting to launch. McCain escaped from his burning jet and was trying to help another pilot escape when a bomb exploded; McCain was struck in the legs and chest by shrapnel.[28] The ensuing fire killed 134 sailors and took 24 hours to control.[29][30] As Forrestal headed for repairs, McCain volunteered to join the short-staffed USS Oriskany.
Prisoner of war
John McCain's capture and imprisonment began on October 26, 1967. He was flying his twenty-third bombing mission over North Vietnam, when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a Soviet-made SA-2 anti-aircraft missile over Hanoi.[32][33][34][35] McCain fractured both arms and a leg,[36] and then nearly drowned when he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.[32] After he regained consciousness, a mob gathered around, spat on him, kicked him, and stripped him of his clothes.[37] Others crushed his shoulder with the butt of a rifle and bayoneted him in his left foot and abdominal area; he was then transported to Hanoi's main Hoa Loa Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by American POWs.[37][38]
Although McCain was badly wounded, his captors refused to give him medical care unless he gave them military information, beating and interrogating him.[37] Only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral did they give him medical care[37] and announced his capture. His status as a POW made the front pages of The New York Times[39] and The Washington Post.[40]
McCain spent six weeks in the Hoa Loa hospital, receiving marginal care.[32] Now having lost 50 pounds, in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white,[32] McCain was sent to a different camp on the outskirts of Hanoi[41] in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week; they nursed McCain and kept him alive.[42] In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years.[37]
In July 1968, McCain's father was named commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater.[2] McCain was immediately offered a chance to return home early:[32] The North Vietnamese wanted a worldwide propaganda coup by appearing merciful, and also wanted to show other POWs that elites like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially.[37] McCain turned down the offer of repatriation; he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.[43] McCain's refusal to be released was even remarked upon by North Vietnamese senior negotiator Le Duc Tho to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman during the ongoing Paris Peace Talks.[44]
In August of 1968, a program of severe torture methods began on McCain, using rope bindings into painful positions, and beatings every two hours, at the same time as he was suffering from dysentery.[37][32] McCain made an anti-American propaganda "confession" that said he was a "black criminal" and an "air pirate".[32] He has always felt that his statement was dishonorable,[45] but as he would later write, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."[37] His injuries left him permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head.[46] He subsequently received two to three beatings per week because of his continued refusal to sign additional statements.[47] Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions",[37] with many enduring even worse treatment than McCain.[48]
McCain refused to meet with various anti-war peace groups coming to Hanoi, not wanting to give either them or the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory based on his connection to his father.[37] From late 1969 on, treatment of McCain and some of the other POWs became more tolerable after disclosures to the world press of the conditions to which they were being subjected.[37] McCain and other prisoners were moved around to different camps at times, and later cheered the B-52-led U.S. "Christmas Bombing" campaign of December 1972 as a forceful measure to force North Vietnam to terms.[37][49]
Altogether, McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, ending direct U.S. involvement in the war, but the Operation Homecoming arrangements for POWs took longer; McCain was finally released from captivity on March 15, 1973.[50] |
Pretty fucking impressive, even if he is a dickwad. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples that aren't even necessarily war/combat related.
btw, what is "afaik?"
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