Rest in Peace John McCain

A true patriot and honorable man, my heart goes out to his family tonight. Rest in peace Sir, and thank you deeply for your service to our great nation.

Recalling the John McCain We Knew
Reporters and editors at The New York Times had a backstage view of Mr. McCain’s decades in public life. Here are their reflections.
August 25, 2018

He had a request for his tombstone: “He served his country.”

In January 2015, when Mr. McCain had just taken over the chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee — “the only job in Washington, other than being president, that he ever wanted,” I wrote then — I ran into him practically skipping along in a Senate corridor. We hadn't seen one another in some time. “Come see me!" he said playfully. So I did. When I showed up at his office some days later for our interview, I found the senator in a contemplative mood.
— Sheryl Gay Stolberg

A martyr? No, certainly not. There was plenty I disagreed with McCain about, particularly his strong pro-war stance, flip-flopping on the torture of prisoners, and especially picking Palin as his running mate (I was all set to vote for him until he did that and gave a boost to the alt-right); however, I believe at his core he put this country first and to me that is honorable. I did not know about his personal history, and I respect him less for what he did to his first wife.

This article pretty much sums up my take on him as well:
Reckoning With John McCain
Respecting the best of McCain requires grappling with the rest of McCain.
By Timothy Patrick McCarthyTwitter
August 27, 2018

I’m an historian, so I feel compelled, on the occasion of his passing, to respect the best of John McCain while also reckoning with the rest of John McCain. Death is one of those moments where legacies are made, where memories are shaped, and men of outsize power and privilege require a full reckoning, regardless of whether criticism is considered “bad timing” or “disrespectful.”

What makes John McCain’s passing more complicated for me—and this will probably upset some of my friends on the left—is that we need more Republicans to be like John McCain.

This is a long, but riveting (and tough) read of his personal account of his captivity. Including it simply because I find it fascinating and it re-affirms my stance that torture is never acceptable and war should be avoided as hard as possible.
John McCain, Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account
John McCain spent over 5 years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam, and wrote about it in May 1973.
By John S. McCain, Contributor 
Jan. 28, 2008

Of the many personal accounts coming to light about the almost unbelievably cruel treatment accorded American prisoners of war in Vietnam, none is more dramatic than that of Lieut. Commander John S. McCain III—Navy flier, son of the admiral who commanded the war in the Pacific, and a prisoner who came in "for special attention" during 5½ years of captivity in North Vietnam.

Now that all acknowledged prisoners are back and a self-imposed seal of silence is off, Commander McCain is free to answer the questions many Americans have asked:

What was it really like? How prolonged were the tortures and brutality? How did the captured U.S. airmen bear up under the mistreatment—and years spent in solitary? How did they preserve their sanity? Did visiting "peace groups" really add to their troubles? How can this country's military men be conditioned to face such treatment in the future without crumbling?

Here, in his own words, based on almost total recall, is Commander McCain's narrative of 5½ years in the hands of the North Vietnamese.