"John McCain is no hero!"
A special commentary by UnfitMcCain.com's editor, Hugh E. Scott
I haven't always disrespected Senator McCain. Quite the contrary, because I'm a
Vietnam veteran, ex-Air Force pilot and lifelong registered Republican, he used to
be a big hero of mine.
about his POW record. During the facts-check, I ran across an article about John by the
late Colonel David Hackworth, a much-decorated career Army officer,
legend and popular TV guest commentator.
Colonel Hackworth
In 25 years of active military service, which spanned the Korean and
“Hack” received 78 combat awards, including the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross,
Bronze Star with "V," Air Medal and eight Purple Hearts.
Before his death in 2005 from cancer, Col. Hackworth wrote the following:
John McCain is being hailed by the press as a “genuine war hero.”
But is he a war hero in the conventional sense like Audie Murphy
and John Glenn? Or is his “war hero” status the creation of a very
slick publicity campaign that plays on flag, duty, honor and country?
On a purely medal-count basis, McCain outweighs Murphy and
Glenn, who both for years repeatedly performed extraordinary
deeds on the ground or in the air against an armed enemy. Yet in
McCain’s own words, just four days after being captured, he admitted
violating the U.S. Code of Conduct by telling his captors, “O.K. I’ll
give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.”
The facts are that McCain signed a confession and declared himself
a “black criminal who performed deeds of an air pirate.” This
statement and other interviews he gave to the Communist press
were used as propaganda to fan the flames of the antiwar movement.
Accounts by McCain and other writers tell of the horror he endured:
relentlessly beatings, torture, broken limbs--all inflicted during
savage interrogations. Yet no other POW was a witness to these
accounts. A former POW says, “No man witnessed another man
during interrogations. We relied on each other to tell the truth
when a man was returned to his cell.”
The United States Navy says two eyewitnesses are required for any
award of heroism. But for the valor awards McCain received, there
were no eyewitnesses, less himself and his captors.
Our POWs in
either break a POW or kill him. POWs provided info beyond name,
rank and serial number or they didn’t come back. Based on these
stalwart men’s horrific experiences, the Code of Conduct was changed.
A POW says, “Now the training is to give the enemy something…
don’t risk permanent damage to health, mind or body.”
McCain refused an early release. An act of valor? Three former
POWs told me he was ordered to turn it down by his American POW
commander and he “just followed orders.”
McCain certainly doesn't appear to be a war hero by conventional
standards, but rather a tough survivor whose handlers are
overplaying the war hero card.
From my perspective, Col. Hackworth was not completely accurate when he said the
Code of Conduct had been revised because of
case with Air Force POW training, which allowed more information to be given to
enemy captors than simply name, rank and serial number. The Code modification
resulted from problems encountered years before by American prisoners in
Korea.
In 1964, while a pilot in the Strategic Air Command, I went through SAC’s infamous
Part of the course involved POW training. It began with classroom instruction on
how to behave after capture. For example, we were taught deceptive play-acting
techniques for use during enemy interrogations, to avoid disclosing military secrets.
Later in the field, to practice the techniques during make-believe Q&A’s, we were
required to say more than just name, rank and serial number.
In one exercise while being held “prisoner” in a mock Russian POW camp, I was
taken to a small office for questioning, seated and left alone. Displayed on the table
before me were three items: a cigarette, Zippo lighter and Styrofoam cup of hot
chocolate. I knew the drill. I could drink the hot chocolate but not smoke the cig.
Accepting favors such as cigarettes while in captivity is a blatant violation of the Code
of Conduct for prisoners of war. Food is different; a POW is obligated to eat all he
can, when he can, and then share the information with fellow POWs so his rations
can be divided among the other men based on the estimated calories consumed.
This was especially important during WWII to fight starvation in German and
Japanese internment camps. Conversely, cigarettes have no food value and are
considered enemy gifts with a price tag attached -- such as revealing classified
information.
Section III of the Code of Conduct states, “I will accept neither parole nor special
favors from the enemy.” Alone in the mock POW interrogation room, by lighting
up with the Zippo, I would have been accepting a “special favor.” I also would’ve
signaled weakness on my part, which is typical of persons addicted to one of the
most powerful stimulants known to man: nicotine.
Even though I was a heavy smoker back then and had the craving—big time!—I
avoided the temptation and grabbed the cup of hot chocolate instead.
Before I could drink the nourishing beverage, my “Russian interrogator” rushed
back into the room and slapped the cup out of my hand. Later, during a critique of
my POW performance, I was commended for not going for the weed.
In McCain’s 1999 autobiography, Faith of My Fathers, he admitted to smoking
cigarettes provided him by his captors. It’s reasonable to assume the North
Vietnamese weren’t aware he was addicted to nicotine. Thus, if McCain, a two packs
a day smoker, had initially refused the tobacco favor, nothing would’ve been said or
inferred.
On the other hand, when he took that first puff, his captors knew instantly McCain
had a weakness that could make him more vulnerable to disclosing military secrets
during interrogations, which he did.
McCain on civilian hospital bed
smoking an enemy cigarette
In return for medical treatment at a civilian hospital, a privilege never granted to
other injured POWs, McCain reportedly told NVA interrogators the name of his
aircraft carrier, how many Navy pilots had been lost, the number of planes in his
flight formation, tactics used during bomb runs and the location of rescue ships in
the
Because of the revelations which McCain repeated in propaganda radio broadcasts,
the North Vietnamese contemptuously nicknamed him “Songbird.”
On June 4, 1969, a U.S. wire service story headlined, “PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of
Admiral,” described one of McCain’s radio recordings: “Hanoi has aired a broadcast
in which the pilot son of the United States commander in the Pacific, Adm. John
McCain, purportedly admits to having bombed civilian targets in
and praises medical treatment he has received since being taken prisoner.”
During his six-week hospital stay and for months afterwards, McCain continued to
cooperate with NVA interrogators. He made more radio broadcasts for the enemy
and met with foreign dignitaries, enjoying hot tea, coffee and cigarettes in posh
settings while back at the Hanoi Hilton and other internment camps, his fellow
POWs struggled to stay alive.
In one case, while meeting with Cuban journalist Fernando Barral, McCain The interview lasted between 45 minutes and an hour, according to Barral. He Barral said he conducted a cursory medical examination and found that McCain After dispensing with the pro forma name, rank and serial number, the men talked Although McCain claimed he didn’t discuss military matters with Barral, the Hanoi Also in his 1999 autobiography, while admitting to accepting special favors from the True or not about the specific details of his collaborations, McCain said in Faith of
voluntarily spoke in Spanish, even though he was obligated as an American POW
to be evasive during their conversation. Had McCain feigned ignorance of Barral's
native language, the meeting might not have lasted five minutes.
English-version Cuban newspaper clipping
showing McCain with Fernando Barral.
The Barral interview took place in 1970, more than two years after McCain’s
capture when he was no longer being physically abused. Cuban diplomats in
Hanoi told Barral to say he was a Spanish psychologist, even though he hadn't
lived in
said the meeting took place at the offices of
Cultural Relations where cookies, oranges, coffee and cigarettes were offered to
McCain and accepted.
had difficulty rotating his arms. McCain told him that he had not been subjected
to "physical or moral violence."
in Spanish about McCain's family, his aspirations and the downing of his plane.
Quoting Barral, "McCain lamented, 'If I hadn't been shot down, I would have become
an admiral at a younger age than my father.'"
Hilton's
POWs to be interviewed by visitors. Said McCain on page 305 of Faith of My Fathers
(hardcopy edition), “[Denton's] decision was a sound one, even though it deprived
me of further opportunities to demonstrate my psychic equilibrium… not to mention
the [loss of] extra cigarettes and coffee."
enemy -- i.e. drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes -- McCain conveniently omitted
the fact he had conversed with Barral in Spanish, a more serious Code of Conduct
violation.
My Fathers (page 198 of the hardcopy edition) that he revealed “information about
my ship and squadron.” In the same paragraph, he claimed, “The information was
of no real use to the Vietnamese.”
Well, that’s not what retired Army Colonel Earl Hopper believes.
A veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, Hopper contends the information
McCain disclosed was used by North Vietnam to fine-tune their air defense system.
Hopper’s son, Air Force Lt. Colonel Earl Pearson Hopper, was shot down over
elder Hopper co-founded the National League of Families, an organization devoted
to the return of Vietnam War POWs.
On
Times they could not guarantee McCain had been tortured before his interrogations.
Larson told the New Times, “Between the two of us, it is our belief, and to the best
of our knowledge, that no prisoner was beaten or harmed physically in that camp
[known as 'The Plantation']. My only contention with the McCain deal is that while
he was at The Plantation, to the best of my knowledge and Ted’s, he was not physically
abused in any way. No one was in that camp. It was the camp that people were
released from.”
Another POW, Phillip Butler, has a more unflattering opinion of McCain’s character.
In an article published in June 2008 by Military.com,
Naval Academy graduate who spent more than eight years in
prisoner of war, explained why he would not support McCain for the presidency.
Here are some excerpts from
Believe me when I say that back then I would never in a million
years have dreamed that the crazy guy across the hall would
someday be a Senator and candidate for President! John was a
wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit and he was intelligent.
But he was intent on breaking every regulation in our four-inch-
thick USNA Regulations book. And I believe he must have come
as close to his goal as any midshipman who ever attended the
Academy.
I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year
and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the
majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he got
caught doing. In fact he barely managed to graduate, standing
5th from the bottom of his 800-man class. I and many others have
speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his
father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both
I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special
qualification for being President of the
are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion,
something I would look for in a presidential candidate.
Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60’s
and 70’s. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate
than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and
malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John’s
age (71) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to
serve as our President for four or more years.
I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot
head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have
experienced firsthand. Folks, quite honestly, that is not the finger
I want next to the red button.
Other POWs are critical of Sen. McCain because of the abusive way he treated the
families of American servicemen missing in
1992 Select Senate Committee investigation of MIAs and sealing their records.
For reasons I will never understand, McCain took an unrelenting position that no
living POWs were left behind in 1973, when he was freed by the North Vietnamese.
Quite the contrary, there is evidence that indicates at least one U.S. serviceman,
MIA Kelly Patterson, may have been held captive after McCain’s release.
I became interested in Patterson after meeting a POW on the Internet named Ron
Mastin. We were both on an email list maintained by a mutual friend who was also
a
Curious about Mastin’s background, I googled his name on the Web and found the
following text:
“Lt. Cmdr. McDaniel was captured early the morning of
1967 and was transported by his captors to
of war, McDaniel was told by a prison guard known as Onizz that
his bombardier/navigator (Kelly Patterson) had recovered from
his injury and was well.”
“Other POWs who returned during Operation Homecoming in
1973 saw evidence that Lt. Patterson was also a prisoner of the
North Vietnamese.”
“Dewey Smith saw an interrogation questionnaire with Kelly
Patterson's name written on the top of it in the fall of 1967,
another POW saw his name scratched on the wall of his jail cell,
and Ronald Mastin believes he saw a photo of Kelly Patterson's
ID card in a Vietnamese newspaper during the same year.”
Continuing my Internet research, I learned that in November 1985, the Vietnamese
turned over Kelly Patterson’s ID card and Geneva Convention card in good condition
to a Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC) delegation.
In December 1990, in an attempt to satisfy questions asked about Patterson’s fate,
the Vietnamese brought before
have been militiamen involved in the search for Patterson and his aircraft commander,
Red McDaniel.
The militiamen said they shot Patterson to death when he stood up with a pistol in
his hand. However, as Patterson reported over his survival radio to friendly aircraft
in the area, he had suffered a compound leg fracture during bailout. So standing up
would have been impossible for him to do.
In May 1992, Patterson’s alleged burial site was thoroughly excavated by a joint
U.S./Vietnamese field team. The dig showed no trace of human remains. Moreover,
soil examinations proved conclusively the strata in that location had never been
disturbed by man.
In sum, the Vietnamese account that Patterson had been killed on the ground must
be disbelieved because it was clearly a self-serving attempt to keep secret his fate as
a captured and highly prized A-6A Intruder bombardier/navigator.
From Patterson’s ID cards, his interrogators would have eventually learned he was an
expert on the Intruder’s state-of-the-art electronics used with great success against
possessed by Patterson was exactly the kind of information the Soviets wanted. The
North Vietnamese would have been foolish not to give Patterson to the Russians in
return for continued war support. Of course, that was something Vietnamese officials
could never admit--not then, not now. Hence the cover-up.
A reasonable person would think it was entirely possible that Kelly Patterson had been
captured in
During the 1992 Senate Select Committee hearings on MIAs, Red McDaniel presented
a letter to McCain for his consideration. Signed by 50 fellow POWs, it asked that the
congressional investigation into missing American servicemen not be stopped.
McCain, who had threatened to terminate the hearings prematurely, ignored the letter.
His conduct toward MIA families was even more disgraceful. Consider the following
narrative published on a Web site maintained by the nonpartisan organization, U.S.
Veterans Dispatch:
In 1996, McCain encountered a group of POW/MIA family
members outside a Senate hearing room. The family members
were some of the same who worked tirelessly during the Vietnam
War to make sure
He immediately began quarreling with the POW/MIA family
members, who were eager to question him on the issue of what
happened to their loved ones.
Instead showing courtesy and appropriate compassion by answering
their questions, the
shoving them out of his way, nearly toppling the wheelchair of
POW/MIA mother Jane Duke Gaylor. Her son, Charles Duke, a
civilian worker in
MIAs still unaccounted for by the communists.
The POW/MIA families, shocked at McCain’s overly aggressive
behavior toward Mrs. Gaylor, registered complaints with Senate
officials.
Only John McCain knows why he ended the Senate hearings early and sealed the
DOD records of MIAs and POWs, including his own.
Some critics charge he was blackmailed by Vietnamese officials, to force his
endorsement of a pending
Whether or not the allegation is true, a man with John McCain’s fiery temperament
and callous indifference to missing American war veterans should not occupy the
White House.
If that sounds harsh, consider McCain's self-serving behavior during the ongoing
presidential campaign. Shortly after I investigated his war record, the senator began
boasting at town hall meetings that he had refused early release from
suggesting extraordinary bravery. Never mind that POW McCain had absolutely no
choice in the matter.
For one thing, he had been ordered by his senior camp commander not to accept
repatriation unless all other POWs could go home as well. Also, had McCain violated
the order and gone back to the
family and ruined his Navy career.
Former POW Phillip Butler addressed this issue in his Military.com letter, saying: With the straightest of faces, McCain said it was when the North Vietnamese offered to release
John was offered and refused "'early release." Many of us were given
this offer. It meant speaking out against your country and lying about
your treatment to the press. You had to "admit" that the
criminal and that our treatment was "lenient and humane." So I, like
numerous others, refused the offer. This was obviously something
none of us could accept. Besides, we were bound by our service
regulations, Geneva Conventions and loyalties to refuse early release
until all the POW's were released.
Another example of McCain exploiting his war record happened on
he was interviewed during a Pittsburgh radio broadcast by KDKA Political Editor, Jon
Delano.
McCain told
North Vietnamese captors as aliases for the names of his Navy squadron mates. McCain
added that he "naturally recalls" the football team whenever he thinks of
“The Steelers really made a huge impression on me -- particularly in their early years."
.
"When I was first interrogated," continued McCain, "and had to give some information
because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup of the
Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!"
That sounds good, but it wasn’t what McCain said in Faith of My Fathers. On page 194
of the hardcopy edition, he wrote, “Eventually, I gave them [NVA interrogators] my ship’s
name and squadron, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for
more information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packer’s offense line, and said they
were members of my squadron.”
McCain supporters will probably say he “misremembered” the NFL football team because
his POW experience happened nearly 40 years ago. But how do they explain what he wrote
in an article for U.S. News & World Report, published on
In the detailed, 12,000-word piece, McCain, whose memory had to be super sharp back then,
never mentioned using the names of NFL players during his NVA interrogations, even though
the deception would have mitigated the seriousness of his confessions.
One possible explanation for McCain's 1973 omission is that he never told the names of NFL
players to the North Vietnamese. Conceivably, the story was a fantasy he created for his 1999
autobio, to make him appear heroic while campaigning for the White House in 2000. If so,
it also explains why he later "misremembered" the Steelers.
On August 15, 2008, during a speaker's forum featuring Barack Obama and McCain in Lake
Forest, California, hosted by Rev. Rick Warren and broadcast live on TV, the Arizona senator
again played his shop-worn POW card to prove he was capable of dealing with Russian military
adventurism, such as this year's invasion of Georgia.
For example, he told Rev. Warren about being tortured by the North Vietnamese, which cannot
be verified. But the most blatant exploitation of McCain's war record happened when he was
asked about his greatest test of courage.
him early and he turned it down. According to Col. Hackworth and former POW Phillip Butler,
however, no valor was involved in the decision making. 
Rev. Warren with McCain and Barack Obama, August 15, 2008.
On September 4, 2008, while giving his GOP nomination acceptance speech before a rowdy
Republican crowd, McCain shamelessly played his old POW card again -- from the top,
middle and bottom of the deck.
The low point came when he boasted that his bravery had been challenged, but not Senator
Obama's. How more absurd could McCain get? A white man of privilege asserting that in
America's Caucasian-dominated, prejudiced society, a black man never faced a test of
courage? What about every waking day of Barack's life, having to appear in public with a
skin color different from most people around him -- the "Mark of Cain," as evangelical
Christians whisper in private.
McCain should be ashamed of himself for making such a denigrating statement about his
opponent. Obama's activism in South Chicago shows he has more compassion in his little
toe for the plight of impoverished Americans than does the egocentric Arizona senator have
in his entire, pumped up, flag-draped body.
In closing, to paraphrase the late Colonel David Hackworth, John McCain may be a tough
war survivor, but he is no hero.
