John McCain
John McCain was a prominent American politician and naval officer, born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone. He followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, both of whom were admirals in the US Navy, and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958. McCain served as a naval pilot during the Vietnam War, where he was shot down and became a prisoner of war for five years, enduring severe torture and isolation. After returning home, he transitioned to politics, serving in the US House of Representatives and later the Senate, representing Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He ran for president twice but was defeated by George W. Bush in 2000 and Barack Obama in 2008. Known for his bipartisan approach, McCain was influential in various legislative efforts, including campaign finance reform and military readiness. He battled cancer several times and continued to serve in the Senate until shortly before his passing. Posthumously, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his service and commitment to the country.
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John McCain
Senator
- Born: August 29, 1936
- Birthplace: Coco Solo, Panama
- Died: August 25, 2018
- Place of death: Cornville, Arizona
John Sidney McCain was born in a naval hospital in the Panama Canal Zone on August 29, 1936. His father, Jack McCain, was an admiral in the US Navy, as was his grandfather. The young McCain grew up on naval bases and when he was seventeen, attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He graduated in 1958 and served in the US Navy as a pilot for almost twenty-five years.
When the Vietnam War broke out, McCain wanted to prove his bravery and help his country, so he volunteered his abilities as a pilot. He was eventually stationed in Vietnam where he made numerous bombing attacks in North Vietnamese territory. In October 1967, McCain was returning from a successful strike on a Hanoi power plant when his plane was shot down. McCain was taken prisoner by his enemies and subjected to horrendous conditions in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war (POW) camp for five years. McCain endured physical torture and spent long amounts of time in solitary confinement. When his father became chief commander of the naval forces in the Pacific, McCain's captors gave him the chance to leave, but he refused. He chose to follow protocol, which required that prisoners be released in the order that they were captured. McCain has said that while trying to survive life in the camp, he worked to help other prisoners survive by boosting their morale.
McCain lived through the experience and returned home when the war ended in 1973. While he was working through the emotional difficulty that followed his POW experience, he and his first wife, Carol Shepp, were divorced. McCain then returned to duty with the Navy, later becoming the director of the US Navy Senate Relations Office from 1977 to 1981.
McCain's post eventually led him to Phoenix, Arizona, where he met Cindy Hensley. The couple was married in 1980. Two years later, after vigorous campaigning, McCain was voted into the US House of Representatives, representing his adopted state of Arizona. From 1983 to 1987 he served in the House. In 1986, Barry Goldwater announced his retirement from the US Senate, and McCain was quickly elected as his replacement. McCain represented Arizona in the US Senate from 1987 until his death in 2018.
In December 1998, McCain declared his intentions to become a Republican presidential candidate in the 2000 presidential campaign. He hoped that his heroic past, his foreign policy, and his political experience would help him surpass his fellow candidates. However, some critics questioned whether the abuse he endured in Vietnam had given him a bad temper, ill suited to the position of president.
McCain promised that if he were made president, he would reduce federal taxation and reform campaign finance to reduce the influence of special interest groups in government. McCain supported a plan to use 62 percent of the budget surplus to maintain social security. He also hoped to reform the military by making it more defense-ready. McCain took a stance on gun control by supporting background checks and trigger locks, but at the same time he promised to uphold the rights of law-abiding Americans to bear arms.
McCain dropped out of the presidential race when his fellow Republican, George W. Bush, won the "Super Tuesday" primary elections on March 9, 2000. He continued to serve in the Senate, and sponsored the controversial McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, which the Senate passed in April 2001.
In 1993, McCain was diagnosed with melanoma, or skin cancer. A cancerous mole was removed, and he remained in good health until a reoccurrence of the disease in 1999. Cancerous lesions were removed on his temple and upper arm. His skin cancer went into remission in 2002. He was named cancer survivor of the year in 2004 by the Cancer Survivors Hall of Fame, a division of the Cancer Research and Treatment Fund.
While visiting New Hampshire in 2007, McCain formally announced that he would be running for president once more. After controversially selecting Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, he accepted the Republican nomination in September of the following year, hoping to become the oldest president to take office. His opponent was Illinois senator Barack Obama, who would serve as the first African American president if elected. Managing to outspend McCain in regard to campaign funds and gaining public support for his demeanor and his response to the financial crisis in full swing at the time, Obama ultimately defeated McCain by a wide margin, becoming the forty-fourth president in November 2008.
After conceding defeat in the historic election, McCain returned to the Senate. In 2010, he fought another tough battle but won the Republican primary and began his fifth term. Critical of Obama's response to the threat of the terrorist group known as Islamic State as well as the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, McCain was set to gain a new political foothold when he became chairman of the Armed Services Committee in January 2015.
In July 2017, during his sixth term as senator, McCain was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, following an operation to remove a blood clot from his brain. Despite his diagnosis, he returned to the Senate less than two weeks after the surgery to vote on several Republican-drafted bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as "Obamacare." McCain cast the deciding vote to begin consideration of the bills; however, following this vote, he delivered a speech on the Senate floor decrying Senate Republicans' bypassing of "regular order" and attempting to pass legislation along party lines instead of making an effort to compromise. Three days later, McCain was one of three Republican senators, alongside Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, to vote against the final proposed bill—the Health Care Freedom Act, commonly referred to as the "skinny repeal" bill—defeating the measure by a single vote.
His health remained poor, however, and he was not able to participate in many votes over the following year, though he did endorse a bill reducing taxes on corporations and individuals while also capping or removing some deductions that individuals were previously able to take. The bill became the only major Republican legislative success of 2017. In May 2018 McCain published a memoir, The Restless Wave, written with his aide Mark Salter.
McCain's family announced on August 24, 2018, that McCain would cease treatment for brain cancer; he died the following day, at his home in Arizona. He was eighty-one years old. In 2022, President Joe Biden, who had become close with McCain during his time as a senator, posthumously awarded him, via his wife Cindy McCain, with a Presidential Medal of Freedom in honor of his often bipartisan, dedicated service.
Bibliography
Fox, Lauren. "John McCain's Maverick Moment." CNNPolitics, 28 July 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/07/28/politics/john-mccain-maverick-health-care/index.html. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.
Heilemann, John, and Mark Halperin. Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime. HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.
Leibovich, Mark. "How John McCain Turned His Clichés into Meaning." The New York Times Magazine, 18 Dec. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/john-mccain.html. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.
Lizza, Ryan. "Getting to Maybe." The New Yorker, 24 June 2013, pp. 44–55. Academic Search Complete, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=88782678&site=ehost-live. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.
McCain, John, and Mark Salter. The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations. Simon & Schuster, 2018.
McFadden, Robert D. "John McCain, War Hero, Senator, Presidential Contender, Dies at 81." The New York Times, 25 Aug. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/obituaries/john-mccain-dead.html. Accessed 10 Oct. 2018.
Povich, Elaine S. John McCain: A Biography. Greenwood Press, 2009.
Scutti, Susan. "Sen. John McCain Has Brain Cancer, Aggressive Tumor Surgically Removed." CNN, 20 July 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/07/19/health/gupta-mccain-glioblastoma/index.html. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017.
Sprunt, Barbara. "Biden Awards Medal of Freedom to Gabby Giffords, Simone Biles, John McCain." NPR, 7 July 2022, www.npr.org/2022/07/07/1110258885/biden-awards-medal-of-freedom-to-denzel-washington-simone-biles-john-mccain. Accessed 5 Aug. 2022.