After receiving the following from some Religious Right folk, I sent to a friend who went to Annapolis with McCain, for confirmation. You can read his response below this article.
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History of McCain's Life
Feel free to copy and/or send it to others. In my efforts to collect important facts about all the contenders in the up-coming S.C. Republican Presidential Primary, I've learned some startling things about John McCain that leave me deeply troubled. The facts are uncontroverted as I set them out below. Much of the data came from an MSNBC one hour documentary McCain's life, complete with numerous stimonials from McCain's friends, family, fellow naval personnel, and from John McCain himself. Other data
came from McCain's official website, from a large color brochure being delivered by the McCain campaign, and from a salon.com news article dated July 2, 1999.
John McCain (JM hereafter) was born in 1936 into a navy family wherein His grandfather was a WWII officer who was even present on the battleship Missouri when the Japanese surrendered, and his father eventually became Pacific fleet commander during at least part of the Vietnam War. JM was
A wild kid, living the image of Jimmy Dean and Marlon Brando throughout high school, college, and early military service years--including his devotion to parties, fun, liquor, & women. His rebellion against authority & desire for "fun" kept him all four years at the Naval Academy on the very brink of expulsion. He graduated fourth from the bottom of his class, and said in a recent interview that he regretted not doing worse since the lowest grad got to meet President Eisenhower.
His first child was born a year after graduation; his second 3 years later; and 3 years after that he finally married their mother and legally adopted them. They had one more child together before he went off to war. During
that gap between Annapolis and war, he learned to fly for the navy. On a training flight, his trainer said JM disappeared out of formation when returning to base and was seen ditching into Corpus Christi Bay. He was unconscious but came to just as the plane settled on the bottom of the
bay. He managed to escape, and owing to the shallowness of the bay, also managed to reach the surface O.K. Instead of obeying medical orders regarding his concussion, he went partying that night. On board the USS Forrestal during combat duty, his plane was readying for move into catapult
position when another plane's rocket accidentally fired directly into JM's plane. Fuel spilled and caught fire under the plane and was spreading as JM climbed out of his cockpit & jumped off the nose of the plane, hitting the
edge of the burning fuel an d rolling to escape it. He walked away as the plane exploded, setting off a chain reaction of exploding fuel, bombs, and rockets.
Though over 100 men died fighting the blaze and the Forrestal was horribly damaged, JM was virtually unharmed. Three months later, he was shot down on a bombing mission over Hanoi, ejected from his plane, and landed in a lake in downtown Hanoi with two broken arms and a broken leg.
Vietnamese cruelly abused him until learning that he was the son of the Pacific Fleet Commander; then they provided some limited medical aid. He would remain a POW for five and one-half years, sometimes in solitary confinement, and often very near death. Eventually, he signed a
"confession" written by the Vietnamese admitting America's aggression and war crimes. Meanwhile, his wife Carol was lobbying for the American government to take action that would bring release to our POW's.
Release occurred in 1973, but JM was still in rather poor physical condition. One year later, healed as much as possible, JM went off to the National War College. He also began dating other women, eventually leading to divorce.
In 1980, he married Cindy Hensley, beauty queen and heiress to the fortune of one of America's largest Anheuser-Busch distributors. His political career >began shortly thereafter, and they have had four children together. JM
received large, recurring contributions from a financier named Keating, as had four other Senators; and JM had voted for various bills that had favorable impact on Keating's business. There had been meetings with Keating as well. When all this came to light, JM was merely reprimanded
for the appearance of impropriety since no one had found the actual "smoking gun" proof of vote selling. Incidentally, eventually Keating's financial institution went under, and American taxpayers paid billions for the
federal bail-out. There is some evidence suggesting that JM continues this type of "cozy" relationship with big contributors as recently as last week.
In 1994, it was discovered that Cindy had been stealing percocet painkillers for back pain suffered after 1989 surgeries. Ironically, she was stealing them from a medical aid group that she had founded, & she was up to 20
pills per day. Though several felonies were involved, JM enlisted his Keating defense lawyer who secured an agreement with the US Attorney to require only restitution and drug abuse rehabilitation.
A few days ago, after the Iowa caucus' loss and with Bush receiving numerous endorsements from major Republican figures, JM responded, "The Republican establishment is running scared because when I'm President and bring campaign reform, a lot of Republicans will be out of a job." One wonders why a true Republican would boast about putting Republicans out of office. He continues pushing his assault against "Big Tobacco", saying in today's Greenville paper that Big Tobacco has "addicted our children." Of course, he has NOT spoken out against Big Liquor and what it is doing to our entire society. For me, the last straw came this week upon receiving his SC
brochure asking for our votes. In it, he and Cindy McCain are featured as standing up for family values in America, and they intend "to lead by example."
Frankly, John and Cindy McCain are not the example that America needs After 8 years of Bill and Hillary. Americans should remember that we did have warning signs about Bill and Hillary before we elected them in 1992. I hope we don't fail to read the signs again. John McCain is currently
applauded by many in the national media (now THAT'S a truly questionable endorsement). They say Bush may be a man of compassionate conservatism, but McCain is a man of character. My understanding of "character" is quite
different. Character comes when we make wise, right choices the habitual practice of our life. No one is perfect, but with God's help (giving heed to His warnings), we can turn from self to trust in God. I do not see that
evidence in John McCain's life. McCain chose to play the role of "rebel" throughout his teens, twenties, and after. He chose to focus his life then on partying, playing, drinking, and womanizing. He chose to walk the brink
of expulsion, chose to ignore academic duty (unless he really IS ignorant enough to be so near the bottom), chose to sire children without marriage, chose to ignore repeated brushes with death without evidence of repentance, chose to turn his back on the wife who had fought for his release, chose to date others, divorce, and marry another. John McCain chose a beautiful heiress to liquor money, about half his age at the time, just before entering politics; and he chose unwisely to help constituents who gave him
great sums of money. Now McCain chooses to condemn Republicans, chooses to attack tobacco but not alcohol for its "addicting of our children", and desires to lead us all "by example".
I choose to recognize the signs that THIS man's example will not lead anybody in a good direction, that he is a selfish rebel still, and that such hypocrisy is unworthy of my vote.
Richard Hand
Bob Jones University
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Gracey, I know for fact that the school facts are true, he was always in trouble, a rebel at the Academy, graduated almost at the bottom of the class, no respect for authority. His father and grandfather are Admirals with distinguished careers, the Vietnam story is true, I don't know about having all the kids out of marriage, but this is now being hinted to in the news, his fathering all these illegitimate kids. His wife's addiction and how she got the pills is true, I've read that version somewhere, he describes his life after returning from POW camp as wild and lots of women, but he does explain it was a result of the POW experience and of course everyone excuses it as a valid reason. |
