I don't know if silverleaf here is questioning his service in Vietnam, as I do remember some Freepers talking about McCain's later actions while in Congress regarding investigations into the status of POWs and MIAs supposedly left behind in Vietnam.
Seeing as I don't know enough to properly discuss the subject, I've pinged a few other Freepers who I think might know more.
His record in Congress about dumping on US efforts to determine the fate of the MIA’s- speaks for itself. Therefore his comments about North Korea struck me as real hypocritical given his pandering to the Communist Vietnamese.. Just sayin.
In 1992, He and John Kerry(what a coincidence) led a Senate subcommittee to investigate the claims about remaining American MIA/POWs in Vietnam.
The war ended in 1973. We knew, and so did McCain, having been there almost 7 years in Hanoi as a POW, that there were about 1200 POWs.
When they came off the planes in May 1973, there only about 600 of them. The other 600? Evidently, Nixon and Kissinger, to get the first 600 men, agreed to leave the others behind. They would be exchanged for a $ 4 billion
“reparations” payment to North Vietnam. Nixon could not get Congress to approve the $ 4 billion(Congress didn't know the real reason for the money—but, reflecting the mood of the country after a 14 year war that cost 58,000 American lives- said no to any money for NV).
From 1973 to 1992, there over 14,000 recorded sightings of American POWs in SE Asia—Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Some of the signs were the pilots own “call signs” a secret code known only to them and their command.
McCain and Kerry held hearings, and in an unbelievable scene,McCain yelled at an MIA family that pleaded with McCain not to shut down the investigation. Ever since then, IMHO, McCain, war hero or not can go straight to Hell. Remember, Kerry was a Communist sympathiser and anti-war hero. In 2004, Kerry considered McCain as a VP candidate. Imagine having a fake war hero, Kerry,as PRez and McCain, who turned his back on his fellow MIA/POWs as VP. What a nightmare!
McCain cannot ever be trusted. His cry of “Fight with me” for our country, and “Country First” in 2008 rang hollow only until Sarah Palin came into the picture. Because she believes in America.
Anyway, in some not so small way, Mr. McCain is complicit in covering up what happened to 600 POWs left to rot and die, one by one, hoping that there country would come for them.For a military man, a POW no less, to do that was an unthinkable betrayal.
Silverleaf, thank you for your service to our country, It was honorable and saved lives. Our Congress in 1975 threw it all away when they betrayed the South Vietnamese and cut off promised aid when North Vietnam invaded. And these people are still around.
In my opinion John McCain betrayed America one more time in 2008, when he would NOT fight for his country in the wake of the Obama steamroller. In spite of the gifts of Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber, he threw all that away, so to hell with him.
We now have to deal with the results of his vaulted bipartisanship.
Sorry for the lecture—but I swallowed real hard to pull the lever for that SOB last November—I only reconciled it by saying it was a vote for Sarah Palin. I had planned not even to vote for a Presidential candidate for the first time in 36 years of voting.