Originally Posted by
Octane
And the draft dodging Clown in Chief who said Sen. John McCain is not a hero because he got shot down... How does one respond to that?
Here's how:
I was a fighter pilot in Airwing 16 when McCain (a light attack pilot) joined my Airwing part way through our 1967 combat tour. I didn't know him previously because, in those days, the fighters and light attack aircraft operated out of different Naval Air Stations when not deployed onboard a carrier. But my friends who were attack pilots warned me to watch out for John. He was considered something of a joke among those who knew him. I was told if I wanted to meet the Admiral's little boy I had better hurry up because he wouldn't last long. Even McCain admitted in his biography that he did was at the bottom of his class in school and was switched from ship duty to the Naval flight program only because of the intervention of his daddy. He washed out of flight training several times and crashed several airplanes. Anyone else would have been transferred back to the surface Navy, but John's daddy, the Admiral, got him re instated each time and eventually he got his wings. His father even pulled extraordinary strings to get John into an Airwing involved in combat so he could tick that career box. His fellow attack pilots resented the special treatment McCain got.
Sure enough, McCain didn't last very long, he got himself shot down, and became a POW where he disgraced himself by not resisting the enemy up to the standards his fellow POW's had set. My squadron mates who were POWs knew McCain in captivity and reported that sending him to a court martial after they were released was discussed as a real possibility. That didn't happen, but people who served with McCain do not consider him to be some kind of hero.
To make matters worse, he betrayed his wife who stood by him for all those years he was a POW and married into an influential family who greased the skids so that he could become a U.S. Senator. I'm sure he felt more comfortable in Washington where honor, sense of duty, and truthfulness are unknown commodities. Eventually he let down his own political party. He died a bitter, hateful, little shell of a man.