John McCain is serving his third term as United
States Senator from Arizona. He entered the United States Naval Academy at
seventeen and graduated with a Bachelors of Science degree in 1958. His
name is synonymous with the War in Vietnam where, as a POW, he was held prisoner
for 5 1/2 years-two of them in solitary confinement.
The year before his capture in 1967, McCain served
aboard the USS Forrestal, nearly dying when a pilot accidentally fired a missile
into his jet. One hundred and thirty-four men died as explosions crippled
the carrier in what became the Navy's worst non-combat disaster ever.
Afterwards, McCain could have left the war zone for home, but he chose to stay
in the Navy.
Returning to duty in the skies over Hanoi, McCain
was shot down and carried off by an angry mob that nearly beat him to
death. While held captive and routinely tortured, John McCain rejected
offers of early release, knowing the Vietnamese were trying to use him to curry
favor with his father, an admiral in the U.S. Navy.
McCain's supporters cite this story to draw a sharp
contrast between their man and candidates who're dogged by accusations their
powerful fathers kept them out of harm's way.
John McCain stayed in the Navy after his release
from the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" in 1973. He retired with the rank of
Commander in 1981 and won a seat in the House of Representatives the following
year. After serving two terms in the House, McCain set his sights on the
Senate, where Arizona's voters sent him in 1986.
During his time in Washington, Senator McCain's
gained a repution as a maverick, bucking his party's leadership on issues such
as campaign finance reform. When President Clinton wanted to normalize
relations with Vietnam, he turned to John McCain for support. The message
was clear: if McCain could forgive then we all could forgive, and for the first
time in 30 years there's a United States representative in Vietnam.
In 1997 John McCain was appointed Chairman of the
U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Because of
his crackdown on waste in government, he earned the nickname "The
Sheriff."
John and Cindy McCain married in 1980. They
have four children together, Meghan, Jack, Jimmy and Bridget. John McCain
is sixty-three-years old.
