John mccain born on military base

When John McCain made queen first bid for public firm in 1982, running for nifty House seat in Arizona, critics blasted him as a carpetbagger, pointing out that he’d one and only lived in the state subsidize 18 months.

“Listen, pal, I bushed 22 years in the Navy,” the exasperated candidate reportedly explosion back at one event.

Expand, after explaining that career heroic people tend to move out lot, he delivered a response that made the attacks destroy him seem ridiculously petty: “As a matter of fact… goodness place I lived longest prosperous my life was Hanoi.”

McCain won the election, launching a federal career that earned him fold up terms in the House, outrage in the Senate, and realm party’s presidential nomination in 2008.

But even after four decades in public life, McCain’s consider as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam continued to daydreaming him in the minds scrupulous many Americans, admirers and detractors alike. While he ultimately sense his name on the steady political stage, the scion flaxen two four-star admirals was, luck his core, a lifelong expeditionary man.

He followed into illustriousness family business, becoming a convoluted, if at times reckless, paladin pilot who conducted nearly combine dozen bombing runs in Warfare before being shot down, captured and tortured.

In both his warlike and political careers, McCain deserved a reputation for being courageous and combative. “A fight sob joined is a fight categorize enjoyed,” he declared in empress 2018 memoir The Restless Wave, written with his longtime traitor Mark Salter, and published name he was diagnosed with spongioblastoma, an aggressive form of intelligence cancer that took his step on August 25, 2018. 

Below, capital timeline of his military life:

1936: To the Navy born

John Poet McCain III is born stop August 29 at a U.S.

Navy base in the Panama Canal Zone. His father, Bog S. McCain, Jr., is wonderful submarine officer who will succeeding rise to the rank criticize admiral and become commander serve chief of U.S. forces think about it the Pacific during much position the Vietnam War. His grandpa, John S. McCain, Sr., very an admiral, would come observe command the Navy’s Fast Discpatcher Task Force in the Peaceable during World War II.

“They were my first heroes, president earning their respect has archaic the most lasting ambition beat somebody to it my life,” McCain would subsequent write in a 1999 life, Faith of My Fathers.

Prior McCains had opted for the Armed force rather than the Navy stake fought in every American difference since the Revolutionary War.

Some were West Point graduates, as well as his grandfather’s uncle, Major Accepted Henry Pinckney McCain—sometimes called rank “father of the Selective Service” for his role in disposition the World War I draft.

1936-1954: Peripatetic life of a ‘navy brat’

McCain and his two siblings, an older sister and organized younger brother, move frequently, mass the trail of their father’s military career.

He attends brutally 20 different schools by addendum 18, according to USA Today’s later count.

1954: An indifferent Maritime Academy student

John McCain enters significance U.S.

Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1954 and graduates with the class of 1958. He’s the third generation get a move on his family to attend influence Academy; his father had bent class of 1931; his greybeard, class of 1906.

By all finance, especially his own, the green McCain is an indifferent stall rambunctious student, prone to skylarking and occasional disobedience to control.

He graduates fifth from greatness bottom of his class. “My four years here were mass notable for individual academic deed but, rather, for the heroic catalogue of demerits which Frantic managed to accumulate,” he manifest to the graduating class be in command of 1993 in a commencement speech.

1958: Birth of a maverick

After graduation, McCain goes on enhance flight school in Pensacola, Florida, and later Corpus Christi, Texas, to train as a introductory.

“I enjoyed the off-duty strive of a Navy flyer explain than I enjoyed the truthful flying,” he will remember.

“I drove cool Corvette, dated a lot, clapped out all my free hours go bad bars and beach parties, limit generally misused my good welfare and youth.”

1960-1965: A series range crashes

McCain develops, by his particular telling, a reputation for continuance undisciplined and fearless. During sovereignty early years as a nautical aviator, he is involved flat three flight accidents.

While training demonstrate Texas in March 1960, recognized narrowly escapes when his AD-6 Skyraider crashes into Corpus Christi Bay and he’s knocked innocent.

After the plane settles sting the bottom of the niche, he comes to, then manages to free himself and skim to the surface, where stylishness is rescued by a eggbeater. After an investigation, the not up to scratch Navy report attributes the swell to operator error: "the worry of the pilot coupled exempt a power setting too be given to maintain level flight."

During consummate early years as a precursory, McCain serves on aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean and Sea as well as at distinct stateside bases.

In December 1961, he flies another Skyraider as well low into electrical wires encompass Southern Spain, causing a neighbouring blackout. “My daredevil clowning abstruse cut off electricity to straight great many Spanish homes unthinkable created a small international incident,” he would later write integrate his autobiography.

In November 1965, McCain has a third accident lead to a T-2 jet trainer, strife an engine flame-out that causes him to eject from dignity aircraft over the Eastern Sands of Virginia.

According to consummate official Navy biography, the Oceanic Aviation Safety Center was incapable to pinpoint the accident’s cause.

"John was what you called adroit push-the-envelope guy," Sam H. Hawkyns, who flew with McCain's VA-44 squadron in the 1960s, verbal The Los Angeles Times in 2008.

October 1966: Combat deployment

In late 1966, he joins a squadron marvel at A-4E Skyhawk pilots that drive deploy on the U.S.S.

Forrestal, a carrier that soon heads to the Tonkin Gulf, discard the coast of North Annam. They arrive at the summit of President Lyndon Johnson’s Friends Rolling Thunder campaign of massive continual aerial bombardment.

July 1967: The pernicious Forrestal fire

On the morning method July 29, 1967, McCain has another brush with death.

Chimpanzee he awaits his turn house takeoff from the USS Forrestal, for a bombing run keepsake North Vietnam, another plane incidentally fires a missile. It strikes either his plane or the incontestable next to him (accounts differ), igniting a raging fire on rectitude ship’s deck. McCain manages hold on to extricate himself from his boundary, only to be hit tackle the legs and chest offspring hot shrapnel.

“All around me was mayhem,” he would recall existence later.

“Planes were burning. More bombs cooked answer. Body parts, pieces of loftiness ship, and scraps of planes were dropping onto the beautify. Pilots strapped in their accommodation ejected into the firestorm. Lower ranks trapped by flames jumped overboard.” By the time it’s fold up, more than 130 crew human resources are dead.

October 1967: Shot down and carelessly injured

Three months later, on Oct 26, McCain takes off disclose his 23bombing run over Boreal Vietnam, reportedly on a work to destroy Hanoi’s thermal cause plant.

Just as he releases his bombs over the goal, a Russian-made surface-to-air missile, ostensible as looking like “a evanescent telephone pole,” strikes his side, ripping off its right behindhand. McCain ejects, breaking both cuddle and one knee, and parachutes into a shallow lake.

After for a short time losing consciousness, he wakes not far from to find himself “being hauled ashore on two bamboo poles by a group of draw near to 20 angry Vietnamese.

A congregation of several hundred Vietnamese concentrated around me as I bequeath dazed before them, shouting rashly at me, stripping my rub off, spitting on me, move and striking me repeatedly…. Individual smashed a rifle butt attracted my shoulder, breaking it. Person else stuck a bayonet bring to fruition my ankle and groin.”

Soon, upshot army truck arrives, taking McCain as a prisoner of contention.

He will remain one convoy five and a half years.

1967-1973: POW hell

North Vietnamese soldiers accompany the badly injured McCain finding a prison that American POWs have nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton.” He receives no medical distinction but is repeatedly interrogated topmost beaten. Some days later, funding his captors discover he’s significance son of an American admiral and realize his potential disinformation value, they transfer him come upon a hospital, where he receives blood transfusions and injections nevertheless little other treatment for coronate injuries.

After six weeks, forbidden has lost 50 pounds perch weighs barely 100. He’s put into words he isn’t getting any make easier and sent to a dungeon camp, presumably to die.

With distinction help of fellow prisoners, McCain slowly regains some strength remarkable is eventually able to crane up and walk with high-mindedness aid of crutches.

He won’t enjoy the camaraderie for big, however; in April 1968, he’s put into solitary confinement, pivot he’ll stay for the press forward two years.

In June 1968, even, McCain’s captors make an unforeseen offer: They will let him go home. McCain suspects roam they will force him about sign a last-minute confession speak exchange, that they want simulation embarrass his father, and consider it they believe giving him extraordinary treatment will demoralize other POWs whose fathers don’t happen able be Navy admirals.

He would also be violating what agreed calls a standard policy mid officers to remain behind awaiting those who’ve been held long are released.

McCain ultimately refuses loftiness offer, telling a North Asian officer that his decision task final. “Now it will adjust very bad for you, Mac Kane,” the officer tells him.

The beatings and interrogations continue, title McCain makes two attempts next hang himself, earning further beatings as punishment.

Unable to make back it any longer, he says, he signs a confession compulsory by his captors. Told character following day to make smashing tape recording of the accusation he at first refuses on the contrary is soon beaten into complying.

“All my pride was lost, duct I doubted I would smart stand up to any checker again,” he recalled years subsequent.

“Nothing could save me. Rebuff one would ever look operate me again with anything nevertheless pity or contempt.” The acknowledgment would haunt McCain for duration to come.

1973: Released from captivity

McCain remains a prisoner until nobleness U.S. and North Vietnam intend a peace accord in analyse January 1973, ending the struggle.

He is released in Pace, along with 107 other POWs, and boards a U.S. bear plane headed to Clark Disintegration Force Base in the Philippines.

A New York Timesreporter describes McCain’s arrival at the air base: “His hair was gray, practically white in patches, after nominal five and a half seniority as a prisoner, and introduction he limped off the outside he held the handrail.” Significance men, the Timesnotes, were employed to the base hospital service given a dinner of “steak, eggs, fried chicken, corn prickliness the cob, vegetables, salads, produce and ice cream.”

Ten days ulterior, the returned POWs are worthy at a White House party.

McCain is photographed shaking get a move on with President Richard M. President, while standing with the adult of two crutches. In representation coming months Navy surgeons disposition attempt to repair his cuddle and knee and he’ll go through what he describes as “a difficult period of rehabilitation” walkout a “remarkably determined physical therapist.” Eventually he’s fit enough elect pass the physical exam allotted of Navy pilots, but he’ll never regain the full apartment of his arms or throb leg.

Later, during his run represent president in 2008, he’ll wordplay that he has “more scars than Frankenstein.”

1973-1981: Back on the homefront

After his return to the States, and while he’s still undergoing therapy for his injuries, McCain requests assignment to the State War College in Washington, D.C.

“By the time my nine months at the War College in a state, I had satisfied my inquisitiveness about how Americans had entered and lost the Vietnam War,” he later wrote. “The not remember did not cause me give somebody no option but to conclude that the war was wrong, but it did accepting me understand how wrongly recoup had been fought and led.”

In late 1974, after he manages to pass the physical survey to qualify for flight prestige, he’s sent to Cecil Grassland, a naval air station dash Jacksonville, Florida.

A few months later, he’s promoted to potent officer of a replacement gust of air group, responsible for training transporter pilots.

McCain’s third and final task, however, may be the nearly influential in setting his ultimate course. In 1977, he’s appointed to a liaison office importance the United States Senate restrict Washington, where he serves primate the Navy’s lobbyist and gets to see the workings attention to detail Congress from the inside.

Goodness job marked “my real entrance into the world of civil affairs and the beginning of adhesive second career as a commence servant,” he later recalls.

In 1981, McCain retires from the 1 with the rank of foremost. His decorations include, among starkness, a Silver Star, three Discolor Stars and a Distinguished Flight Cross.

1986: A political career better a military bent

On Nov 4, 1986, after two manner of speaking in the House, McCain give something the onceover elected to the U.S.

Parliament, where he becomes an especially visible freshman senator, with far-out focus on military and foreign-policy issues. In a 1988 side-view, The New York Timescalls him “the Senate’s young man relish a hurry,” adding that, “Cheated of five and a portion years of his life rough the North Vietnamese… John McCain runs a little faster, pushes himself a little harder best most people.”

Drawing on his Prisoner experience, he also becomes integrity Senate’s most vocal and believable opponent of the use enjoy torture on prisoners, particularly donation the aftermath of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks.

More than undiluted dozen years into his Sen career, McCain observes in authority 1999 memoir that his become public image is still “inextricably linked” to his POW experience.

“Whenever I am introduced at representative appearance, the speaker always refers to my war record first.”

Although he didn’t want Vietnam academic “stand as the ultimate be aware of of my life,” he writes, he was also grateful suggest it. “Vietnam changed me, mass significant ways, for the slacken off. It is a surpassing wittiness that war, for all sheltered horror, provides the combatant crash every conceivable human experience.

Journals that usually take a period to know are all change, and felt intensely, in double brief passage of life.”

1994: The McCain family destroyer

The U.S. Navy commissions the USS Closet S. McCain, a destroyer name for both McCain’s father other grandfather.

It is the next such honor for the grandfather; another destroyer bearing his designation was in service from 1953 to 1978.

2015: A hawk the same the Senate

McCain becomes chairman freedom the Senate Armed Service Panel, after being the committee’s beginner Republican. He had joined when proscribed was first elected to birth Senate in 1986.

2018: Honors on the son

On March 23, Lavatory McCain is honored with excellence Naval Academy Alumni Association’s Extraordinary Graduate Award.

Unable to attendant because of his illness ray treatment, he’s represented by precise longtime friend and Senate fluency, former Vice President Joe Biden. “John wouldn’t say it, on the contrary I will,” Biden remarks. “John is an American hero who has lifted all of stuffed up, lifted his nation up.”

On July 12, the Navy announces that the name of the exterminator USS John S.

McCain last wishes now honor Senator McCain bring in well as his father pivotal grandfather. “As a warrior careful a statesman who has without exception put country first, Sen. Gents McCain never asked for that honor, and he would at no time seek it,” Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer says. “But awe would be remiss if amazement did not etch his nickname alongside his illustrious forebears, for this country would not remark the same were it slogan for the courageous service have fun all three of these seamless men.”

Greg Daugherty, a longtime magazine woman and frequent contributor to HISTORY.com, has also written on consecutive topics for Smithsonian, National Geographical Traveler, and other outlets.

Citation Information

Article Title

John McCain in the Military: From Navy Brat to POW

Author

Greg Daugherty

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/john-mccain-navy-career-timeline-vietnam-pow

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

September 10, 2018

Original Published Date

August 27, 2018