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Sen. John McCain, who faced down his captors in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp with jut-jawed defiance and later turned his rebellious streak into a 35-year political career that took him to Congress and the Republican presidential nomination, died Saturday after battling brain cancer for more than a year. He was 81.
McCain, with his irascible grin and fighter-pilot moxie, was a fearless and outspoken voice on policy and politics to the end, unswerving in his defense of democratic values and unflinching in his criticism of his fellow Republican, President Donald Trump. He was elected to the Senate from Arizona six times but twice thwarted in seeking the presidency.
An upstart presidential bid in 2000 didn't last long. Eight years later, he fought back from the brink of defeat to win the GOP nomination, only to be overpowered by Democrat Barack Obama. McCain chose a little-known Alaska governor as his running mate in that race, and turned Sarah Palin into a national political figure.
After losing to Obama in an electoral landslide, McCain returned to the Senate determined not to be defined by a failed presidential campaign in which his reputation as a maverick had faded. In the politics of the moment and in national political debate over the decades, McCain energetically advanced his ideas and punched back hard at critics — Trump not least among them.
The scion of a decorated military family, McCain embraced his role as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, pushing for aggressive U.S. military intervention overseas and eager to contribute to "defeating the forces of radical Islam that want to destroy America."
Asked how he wanted to be remembered, McCain said simply: "That I made a major contribution to the defense of the nation."
Also at The New York Timesand c|net.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 27 2018, @04:52PM
I spent several minutes looking for that footage on Youtube. The movie we watched in boot camp is not what Youtube has available. I did find several videos explaining how "Wetstart McCain" caused the fire, but none of them (that I found) actually shows the real video.
Memory fades, and memory plays tricks, and it's been decades since I watched that movie. But, we were required to watch it many times, and we discussed the movie many times. I clearly remember seeing one jet fire up it's engines, and bathe the jet behind it with fire and hot exhaust. The Zuni isn't visible, until AFTER it has ignited, then it comes out of the wall of hot gasses, creating it's own ball of fire. In eight years of service, I watched that movie at least eight times, as part of fire fighting and damage control training. It was also available from time to time on our CCTV, as "entertainment". We didn't watch an edited version - or more precisely, we didn't watch such a heavily edited version.