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They committed us to it, badly misjudged the enemy's resolve, and left us to manage the thing on our own without authority to fight it to the extent necessary to finish it.Yet Senator McCain and his fellow prisoners fought as they could, kept their faith, and resisted to the best of their ability the attempts of their brutal captors to break them. He tells of how he believes that other American Prisoners of War were subjected to greater torture and more severe abuse than he -- that he was spared the worst treatment because his father was an Admiral commanding the forces that were fighting in Vietnam at the time. In fact, Faith ends long before Senator McCain's election to any public office, with his release from captivity as a prisoner in North Vietnam.It has certainly been played out in the media throughout Senator McCain's campaign that he is an American hero, having given his entire life (and, in fact, nearly giving up his life) to the service of his country. For our benefit as much as Mike's, they beat him severely, just outside our cell, puncturing his eardrum and breaking several of his ribs. Throughout Faith of My Fathers, Senator McCain introduces us to other American hereoes, like Mike Christian.Mike was a Navy bombardier-navigator who had been shot down in 1967, about six months before I arrived. It is well reported that John McCain was offered early release because his father was an Admiral in the Navy at the time of his captivity, and it would benefit the NVA to use McCain's early release as propaganda against American forces. War is too horrible a thing to drag out unnecessarily. Barack Obama has two memoirs published, Senator McCain has three books out, Joe Biden has his book out, and even Governor Palin has at least two books out about her (though, admittedly, not written by her).
Beatings that resulted in broken bones that received no medical treatment. None of those things have anything to do with Senator McCain's readiness or ability to be the next President of the United States of America. After things quieted down, we all lay down to go to sleep. It was a shameful waste to ask men to suffer and die [in Vietnam], to persevere through awful afflictions and heartache, for a cause that half the country didn't believe in and our leaders weren't committed to winning.
Through reading Senator McCain's account in Faith of My Fathers, one learns that the good Senator does not consider himself a hero -- merely an American paying back his country for the priceless gift of freedom with his own blood, sweat, and tears.No one who goes to war believes once he is there that it is worth the terrible cost of war to fight it by half measures. It is not an article intended to list the many reasons that Senator McCain is clearly the best candidate to lead this country into the next decade, though I believe he is. Every afternoon, before we ate our soup, we would hang Mike's flag on the wall of our cell and together recite the Pledge of Allegiance. When they had finished, they dragged him bleeding and nearly senseless back into our cell, and we helped him crawl to his place on the sleeping platform. With his eyes nearly swollen shut from the beating, he had quietly picked up his needle and thread and begun sewing a new flag.Faith of My Fathers should be required reading for every American born after 1960; every American who needs a refresher course on the perils of war; every American who thinks it wise to turn tail and run without finishing the job and defending the causes for which America stands.[.].
He had not worn shoes until he was thirteen years old. He had crawled there quietly when he thought the rest of us were sleeping. It has become commonplace for Presidential (and, yes, Vice Presidential) candidates to have a published book in the bookstores at some point in the campaign for the Oval Office. He had grown up near Selma, Alabama. He was seventeen when he enlisted in the Navy. This article is a review of Senator McCain's book Faith of My Fathers, which explains the foregone conclusion of his Naval career, familiarizes the reader with John McCain I and John McCain II (his grandfather and father, respectively), and in sometimes painful description details the Senator's ordeal as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam. His family was poor. For some time, Mike had been taking little scraps of red and white cloth, and with a needle he had fashioned from a piece of bamboo he laboriously sewed an American flag onto the inside of his blue prisoner's shirt.
Among Senator McCain's published books is Faith of My Fathers, a family memoir that is entirely not about politics. No other event of the day had as much meaning to us.The guards discovered Mike's flag one afternoon during a routine inspection and confiscated it. But at the same time, Senator McCain tells us of the many other heroes who were held captive with him. As a young sailor, he showed promise as a leader and impressed his superiors enough to be offered a commission.What packages we were allowed to receive from our families often contained handkerchiefs, scarves, and other clothing items. Character was their wealth. Before drifting off, I happened to look toward a corner of the room, where one of the four naked lightbulbs that were always illuminated in our cell cast a dim light on Mike Christian. These beatings ended in the forced confession of war crimes by John McCain, though his confession was peppered with comments and language designed to make it clear to anyone who might hear the confession that it was derived by means of brutal torture and given under extreme duress.Faith of My Fathers is at the same time a heart breaking and inspiring account of a man who has lived the motto of Country First his entire life.
As if his diet was of his own choosing, and his tiny cell provided ample room for an adequate workout.This is not an article to ask you to vote for Senator McCain on November 4, though I wish you would. And every time he refused, he was severely beaten and thrown into solitary confinement to reconsider his decision. They returned that evening and took Mike outside. His commitment to serve the country he loves so much landed him in the brutal captivity of the North Vietnamese for five years during the Vietnam War, where he was brutally beaten, tortured, and left dying with no medical treatment other than the advice that he should eat better and exercise more. They were good, righteous people, and they raised Mike to be hardworking and loyal. And every time John McCain was hauled back in to ask if he had reconsidered, this patriotic American refused early release, and was beaten again. Senator McCain is an American hero, and would be an American hero even if he wasn't running for the office of President.
It is also well reported that John McCain refused early release, stating that he would not accept release until everyone captured ahead of him was released ahead of him.What is not so widely reported is that John McCain was offered early release several times before his refusal was accepted.
I have no doubt that he is an honorable man who puts love of country above all else. The stories regarding his treatment in North Vietnam showed him to be a person who could endure great hardship and still retain his faith and sanity.Reading this book gave me a much better understanding of him as a candidate and politician. The traits which allowed him to survive as a POW and a career in the military do not always serve him well in politics. A painfully honest family story. Unfortunately, those same traits are what keep him from being a successful national candidate.Highly recommended. McCain clearly admired his father/grandfather and wanted to follow in their footsteps. Much of this book focuses on John McCain's father and grandfather, both of whom had significantly more successful military careers. He seemed to be cut from a different cloth and fate delivered a very different set of life experiences.
This Book Is Great, Revealing of A Great Man Who Sadly Could have been, As a 26 year old, I never brought that this man Could die as the popular belief was in his first four years, which is one of the reasons people gave that he was too old, but with age comes wisdom and experience, This Man Served For the Greater Cause, Was A P.O.W. He is not Perfect, But His Experience could have helped us so much, Sadly Hollywood and other Extreme elements did not Think so. and was a Champion Of Finance Reform, I urge all Including the other candidates supporters to read this Book. Reading this Book, It is so sad, that America Made such a Bad Choice, And that the Media was in the tank the whole time for the other candidate despite so much controversy surrounding the other candidate. You have to Admire a Man Like Mccain what He did For His Country, and Continues to do so.
I mean, if you're going into detail about how fellow prisoners stayed sane through inhuman torture, then give credit where credit's due. Oh John McCain, I do feel very bad that you've gone through so much. Salter (the ex-security guard turned novelista) to focus more on that and less on the near one hundred pages of exposition touting your father and his father's accomplishments and quirky views on life. How fierce).
Oh, and the cover is nice. (Is that bleached hair John is sporting in the 70's. Probably not worth buying in hard copy, too. Second place is the first loser after all.
However, we the readers would probably rather hear about the gritty, mind-numbingly foreign Hanoi Hotel and how you managed to stay sane (and proudly patriotic) in a situation that not many can even dare to sympathize with.I was required to read this book for a college class (in one of the more moderate to extreme liberal universities in New York), and was pleasantly surprised at the better portions of the book. A wonderful story, but sadly, probably less enticing now that the election's over. Perhaps you should have told Mr. Salter makes water torture sound like frying eggs for breakfast on a sleepy Thursday morning.All in all a good read.
At times, it feels as if the prose should have a bit more "oomph". Everyone's familiar with the little piece of Americana that is the perpetually is-he-or-isn't-he-drunk father, and that exposition displays it in spades. The writing is done well for what it is, descriptive in the same way a dictionary is.
To be honest, some of the early chapters which lay the foundation of his life and motivations are a bit of a grind to get through. While perhaps not riveting prose, it is clearly a compelling story of honor, duty, and principle. I've had Faith of My Fathers on my shelf for a while, having previously lightly skimmed select portions of the book. What was undeniable, however, is that the pace picked up as the presentation of the candid and inspirational chronicle of McCain's life unfolded. I'm thankful I went back and finally read the entire book. In the wake of the recent election, however, I decided to go back and read the book cover to cover. I'm glad I did because I was enthralled throughout, though not in the traditional sense of a suspenseful mystery novel.
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