Meet The Man Who Saved John McCain's Life (and who John McCain Betrayed)

[berni_mccoy]

I wonder why John McCain didn't tell this story at Saddleback? THIS seems like one of his greatest Moral Failures.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-542277/How-war-hero-John-McCain-betrayed-Vietnamese-peasant-saved-life.html

How war hero John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life

In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.

On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.

In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.

And when a furious mob at the water's edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, Mr On drove them back.

<snip>
From that brief encounter to his death at the age of 88 two years ago, Mr On never heard from the senator again, and three years after their meeting, McCain published an autobiography that makes no mention of his apparent debt to Mr On.

It is a snub Mr On took to his death.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. He hates"gooks". Maybe his time in the Hanoi Hilton made him unable to

believe there is such a thing as decent Vietnamese people, but I really hate to go there since it's playing the same old POW card.

[ClayZ]

2. K & R

[Spazito]

3. Whoa, I hadn't about that before....

Not surprising, though, given we are talking about McCain.

Recommended.

[Schema Thing]

4. I could be wrong, but I think McCain did finally meet with the man

and yet later did not make any mention of him in his book.

[berni_mccoy]

5. Read the article. He meets with him once and then ignores, in McCain's own words, the "g**k".

[glitch]

24. OMG. Is this man actually, creepier than a bush?

Who knew that was even possible? Thanks for posting.

[Tigress DEM]

27. Beginning to look that way. *ush has tantrums, dick shoots friends in the face..

What does a former POW with PTSD taking on the stress of the highest office in the nation and possibly the most stressful job in the world do when the sh** hits the fan?

Hopefully we'll never find out.

[grannie4peace]

6. wow--

that is intense. i don't know how to send those things around--

[berni_mccoy]

7. Just email the link. We need to get broad coverage so that everyone sees this.

[FogerRox]

28. My fav is McCain gets permission to fly to the Army Navy football game

and crashes on the way home. MCcain crashed 3 jets, before losing 2 more.

[berni_mccoy]

29. Yep, that's a good one.

[patrice]

8. I hate to rain on this parade, but the counter to this story is: VN peasants knew

what kind of prisoners the VC prized; a living pilot would have filled the bill, and social status is a strong reinforcer in a nation as besieged as VN was for soooooooo long.

[Spazito]

9. Ahhh, but let them have to MAKE the counter-argument....

the article raises another issue that might force the McCain campaign to have to respond. Keep them on the defensive.

[patrice]

11. Clearly, the high-road, the dignified thing to do, no matter the VN national's motives, would be

to demonstrate character by being gracious for the gift of his life, no matter what the circumstances.

Crash wouldn't recognize true nobility if it sat in his lap. His story about the gun gaurd was completely wrong-headed: they were worshipping the cross drawn in the dirt, ostensibly, rather than McCains recognizing that the SOLDIER DIS-OBEYED ORDERS AND WAS KIND TO THE ENEMY - i.e. the opposite of McCain's Iraq policy.

[Spazito]

14. The ONLY thing that is keeping McCain in this race in real terms, imo...

is the 'McCain the POW is sacrosanct' meme that his campaign and the repubs keep shouting to the rooftops. Breach that fallacy and the last leg of his campaign folds beneath him, imo.

McCain's behavior is despicable, his character highly questionable whether or not he was a POW.

[berni_mccoy]

10. Then why would McCain *ever* agree to meet with him?

Sorry, I doubt buy that counter argument here.

[unblock]

12. so the mclame argument would be that he would have preferred to be left for dead?

[iconicgnom]

17. Gotta really stretch to find that "rain"

[eridani]

18. VC? Aren't you a little geographically confused here?

McSame was shot down over what was then called "North Vietnam" by the rest of the world.

[Arkansas Granny]

21. I don't believe the poster was referring to VC as a country, but rather the Viet Cong.

The Vietcong (Việt Cộng) was a communist army based in South Vietnam that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1959-75). It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the regular North Vietnamese army. The Vietcong was closely allied with the government of North Vietnam.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong

[progressive_realist]

22. That's the point

The Viet Cong (VC) were active in South Vietnam. McCain was shot down over North Vietnam. At the time those were two entirely separate countries.

[eridani]

23. Yes, but they were rarely IN North Vietnam

Can't figure out why anybody would expect to find any of them physically north of Hue.

[SwampG8r]

30. compares to the warlord situation

in pakistan and Afghanistan actually
with the exception that the VC were not fighting for personal gain

[TexasObserver]

13. all consistent with McCain's refusal to think of such men as humans

[berni_mccoy]

16. That's going to be his downfall on CROSSGATE too... he said there was only ONE guard who showed

any humanity or kindness toward him and it was the guard that let him sleep one night during a series of forced-standing punishments.

However, there is no way *that* guard can be the same guard from McCain's made-up story who loosened McCain's bindings and showed McCain the sign of the cross in the dirt. As Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic points out here: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/the-dirt-in-the.html

"One more thing: McCain's various stories only talk of one guard - "the only real human being that I ever met over there". And yet the guard who loosened his ropes in May 1969 could not have been present the following Christmas, as McCain had been transferred to another location (unless the transfer occurred between Christmas and New Year of 1969 and unless the guard was transferred to exactly the same camp at the same time) "

[SwampG8r]

31. he will deal well with the chinese i bet

with his mindset




do i need a sarcasm thingee or is this plain enough?

[me b zola]

15. k&r

[WhiteTara]

19. he is even more despicable than I thought! n/t

[berni_mccoy]

20. Every day something new comes out about him that is just far lower than his last low

[WhiteTara]

26. he is an example of what torture can do to

another human being. Destroy their souls.

[opihimoimoi]

25. Mr On saves the dudes life....no omiyagi , no nothing? How Grateful of McSane

Despicable and unforgiving...the villagers will erect a shrine to McCrash so their dogs can piss on it....what a fuckin Jerk...

[IndianaJones]

32. John McCain was a borderline traitor in Vietnam. nt.