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John McCain's Death
- John McCain
- Politics
- August 29, 1936
- August 25, 2018
- Cancer
The life and death of John McCain:
He lived a life of service to his country - the son and grandson of highly decorated Navy admirals. (In fact, they had a warship, the destroyer USS John S. McCain, named after them.) John McCain III followed in their footsteps and graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1958 but he ended up a POW during the Vietnam war. After his release he went into politics and served for decades in Congress, first as a Representative and then as a four-term senator from Arizona. He also ran for President as a Republican in 2008 to be defeated by Barack Obama. But his last major political act was upholding Obama’s signature program of healthcare reform, to the chagrin of then sitting president Donald Trump. The Trump-McCain feud lasted until the end of McCain ‘s life and McCain requested that the Trump not attend his funeral.
John Sidney McCain III was born at the Coco Solo Naval air station in the Panama Canal zone, then under U.S. control and making John a US citizen. His father was John S McCain Junior, a naval officer, and his mother was the former Roberta Wright. John was the second of three children with a younger brother named Joe …
…and an older sister named Sandy. McCain’s ancestors came from Scotland, Ireland and England. He’s pictured here as a boy with his highly decorated forebears.
The McCain family followed the admiral to various naval postings in the US and Pacific and John attended nearly two dozen different schools.
When the family settled in Northern Virginia in 1951, John attended Episcopal High School near Alexandria and excelled at wrestling. He graduated in 1954 and following in his father and grandfather ‘s footsteps, attended the US Naval Academy in Annapolis.
He began his early military career as an Ensign and became a naval aviator but developed a reputation of being careless and reckless.
What he was 28 he married Carol Shepp, a model from Philadelphia…
and adopted her two young daughters. He and Carol then had a daughter of their own named Sidney.
McCain requested a combat assignment and was part of the Operation Rolling Thunder campaign through the Vietnam war.
On July 29, 1967 Lieutenant Commander McCain was shot down and escaped his burning jet. While he was trying to help another pilot escape, a bomb exploded, and McCain was wounded in the legs and chest. The fighting that followed killed 134 sailors and took 24 hours to complete.
He got away but a mere three months later, McCain was not as lucky. On October 26, 1967 while flying his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam, McCain‘s Skyhawk was shot down over Hanoi. He broke both arms when he was thrown from the aircraft are nearly drowned when he parachuted into a lake.
North Vietnamese soldiers pulled him out and broke his shoulder and bayonetted him and McCain was taken to Hanoi’s main prison, which was nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton.
Although McCain was injured, the North Vietnamese wouldn’t treat him but instead beat him and interrogated him to get information.
In 1968, McCain‘s father John Junior was named commander of all US forces in Vietnam and the North Vietnamese offered him early release for propaganda purposes. But McCain refused unless every man captured with him was also released. So, in August 1968 he was subjected to severe torture.
He was a Prisoner of War in Vietnam for 5 1/2 years and was released on March 14, 1973. His injuries left him permanently in capable of raising his arms over his head.
When McCain returned to the United States, he reunited with his family - although his wife Carol had suffered a crippling injury because of an auto accident in December 1969.
In April 1979 McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley, a teacher for Phoenix …
… and they started dating. He asked his wife Carol for a divorce and she did in February 1980. The uncontested divorce took effective April 1980 and he Hensley then married on May 17, 1980. McCain’s children did not attend, and it was years before there was a reconciliation.
McCain left the Navy retiring as a captain and moved on to politics, when became a Representative from the Phoenix area and later succeeded Barry Goldwater as a Republican senator in the US Senate.
McCain was generally considered a conservative, but he also had a reputation of a maverick because he was willing to disagree with his party on certain issues. He made campaign-finance reform one of his signature concerns. He also opposed pork barrel spending, which is spending on pet projects for certain Senators. McCain also belonged to a bipartisan Gang of Fourteen, which played a big role in avoiding a crisis over judicial nominations.
He ran for president in 2000 but lost the Republican nomination to Texas Governor George W. Bush. McCain came back in 2008 after Bush’s two terms but lost by a two to one Electoral College margin to Barack Obama in the general election.
In the final weeks of that campaign, McCain even defended Obama at one of his own campaign rallies.
In July 2017, McCain was diagnosed with a brain tumor and sealed his reputation as a maverick in the spring of 2018 when he cast of the key vote upholding Obama’s signature program - known as Obamacare - thus killing a repeal effort promised by President Donald Trump.
Trump had previously spoke dismissively and disparagingly of McCain ‘s war service and killing the measure to repeal Obamacare intensified the feud between the two men, which escalated to the point where McCain asked that Trump not attend his funeral.
John McCain died on August 24, 2018, the day after his family announced he would no longer receive treatment for his cancer. He it was just a few days short of his 82nd birthday.
His body would lie in state of the Arizona State capital on August 29, followed by church services on August 30 at North Phoenix Baptist Church.
Then McCain lied in state in the US Capitol rotunda on August 31…
…before services at the National Cathedral on September 1.
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama - who had defeated him in his presidential campaigns –delivered eulogies at his funeral.
He was laid to rest at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, survived by his widow Cindy…
…his 106-year-old mother Roberta…
…pictured with him here in 2008 after he won the GOP Presidential nomination and seven children from his two marriages…
…Meghan, John and James with Cindy, daughter Bridget adopted with Cindy, daughter Sidney with first wife Carol Shepp and Carol’s two sons from a prior marriage Douglas and Andrew.