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There are heroes and then there are charlatans. To detect who is which requires one to observe over time the sincerity of the person. Here are described the acts of one true American hero: ADMIRAL JAMES B. STOCKDALE The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to STOCKDALE, JAMES B.Rank and organization: Rear Admiral (then Captain), U.S. Navy. Place and date: Hoa Lo prison, Hanoi, North Vietnam, 4 September 1969. Entered service at: Abingdon, Ill. Born: 23 December 1923, Abingdon, Ill..Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the...

Don’t be sure the McCain episode is the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s bizarre presidential campaign. Don’t even be sure it’s the end of the beginning. Attacking him with censure and shame is like trying to destroy Godzilla with electricity: It might just make him stronger. Why should anyone pay the slightest attention to the Trump circus? Because the most recent polls — to the GOP establishment’s great consternation — show him in first place. Also because Trump, rather than any of his more experienced rivals, is setting the agenda for the race. On Saturday, he committed what...

Sen. Lindsey Graham thinks real-estate mogul Donald Trump is a “jackass” and his comments about Sen. John McCain were the beginning of the end of his candidacy. “He’s bringing his name down and he’s not helping the process and he shouldn’t be commander in chief,” Graham said. The South Carolina senator was speaking on CNN’s “Out Front” on Monday, responding to Trump’s Saturday comment that McCain was not an American hero because he was taken prisoner by North Vietnamese forces. “He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who...

...His jet was hit by ground fire, and David was forced to eject, parachuting into a valley near a village. As his parachute deployed, his wingman watched him descend, and saw him captured as he landed. David’s capture in Laos was published in a North Vietnamese newspaper, Quan Nahn Dan... One of the committees I testified before was the 1992 Senate Select Committee Hearings on POW/MIA. John Kerry and John McCain did everything to keep the truth from coming out and ignored all the evidence. Three former Secretaries of Defense testified that men had been left behind, but Kerry and...

What could Donald Trump have been thinking when he said John McCain was not a war hero? Certainly he must have known it would lead to the end of a political career – but the question now is: Whose political career? The media – even the putatively conservative New York Post – is gleefully saying, “Trump is toast after insult: ‘McCain not a war hero’ Don Voyage!” Is this true; or is this media wishful thinking so they can go back to telling us how wonderful Jeb Bush is? Wishful thinking is a dangerous thing in all walks of life...

What has gone underplayed in today's widespread outrage over Donald Trump's dismissal of John McCain's war heroism is that the GOP national-poll front-runner's comments, besides demonstrating an idiocratic lack of basic human judgment and decency, are also dead wrong. Because this is Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is a vulgar anti-intellect who cannot string a coherent paragraph together, his full statement contradicts itself several times within 57 short words. So let's just focus on the bolded part from his remarks: He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured—OK, I...

The Iran nuclear deal that could prevent a war must have evoked another deal to end a war almost 50 years ago in the Secretary of State.John Kerry was angry. “Listen to this. Listen to what Trump just said about John McCain,” Kerry was saying over the phone. “ ‘He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.’ ” “That’s unbelievable,” Kerry said. “That’s beyond outrageous.” “John and I have some serious differences on a lot of things but he is nothing other than a hero and a good man....

Eighteen months ago, TAC publisher Ron Unz discovered an astonishing account of the role the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, had played in suppressing information about what happened to American soldiers missing in action in Vietnam. Below, we present in full Sydney Schanberg’s explosive story.

Donald Trump’s surge in the polls has followed the classic pattern of a media-driven surge. Now it will follow the classic pattern of a party-backed collapse. Mr. Trump’s candidacy probably reached an inflection point on Saturday after he essentially criticized John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War. Republican campaigns and elites quickly moved to condemn his comments — a shift that will probably mark the moment when Trump’s candidacy went from boom to bust. His support will erode as the tone of coverage shifts from publicizing his anti-establishment and anti-immigration views, which have some resonance in the party,...

For John Kerry, vindication came at midnight. As last Monday became Tuesday in Vienna, the U.S. secretary of state picked up the telephone in his first-floor room at the ornate, 19th-century Palais Coburg and dialed the White House. We have a deal, Kerry told President Barack Obama. After nearly 18 days of intense, often fractious and highly technical negotiations in the Austrian capital, he reported an agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. All that remained was cleaning up the written details, Kerry said, a task that would be completed in the wee hours of Tuesday...

Ames, Iowa - Donald Trump confirmed two things during a stop in this central Iowa town Saturday: He has no class and he may well run as an independent when he does not win the Republican nomination. There had been considerable public evidence of both long before his appearance here today at the Family Leader Summit but Trump, who is leading several national polls of the Republican primary, erased any doubt with comments he made about Senator John McCain and a prospective independent bid. Trump was answering questions from Republican pollster Frank Luntz on stage when he declared that John...

In the fall of 1967, when a 14-year-old Texan named John Ellis Bush arrived on the bucolic campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, great expectations preceded him. -snip- A few weeks after graduation, on July 16, 1971, Bush filled out an index card on which he registered for the draft. (A copy of the card was obtained by the Globe under the Freedom of Information Act.) On the line requesting a contact, he listed his father, who continued to serve as Nixon’s United Nations ambassador: “Amb. George H. W. Bush, Waldorf Towers . . . New York City.” Bush received...

Despite Donald Trump’s claim this week that he avoided serving in the Vietnam War solely due to a high draft number, Selective Service records show that the purported presidential aspirant actually received a series of student deferments while in college and then topped those off with a medical deferment after graduation that helped spare him from fighting for his country, The Smoking Gun has learned. During a TV interview Tuesday morning, Trump--who spent his high school years enrolled at the New York Military Academy--said, “I actually got lucky because I had a very high draft number. I’ll never forget, that...

(CNSNews.com) – In the closing minutes of the Iran nuclear negotiations in Vienna this week, Secretary of State John Kerry made a comment about having gone to war as a young man and not wanting to do so again, leaving everyone in the room, including the Iranians, with “tears in their eyes.” Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator in the talks, recounted the moment while addressing the annual Generation Prague Conference at the State Department on Wednesday. Sherman said that in the final plenary session, with the media out of the room, each of...

C-Span has just aired a replay of the Wednesday ceremony held by the US Congress to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Vietnam War. Congressional leaders and current members, the Secretary of Defense, and past members of Congress who had served in Vietnam spoke about the war, its significance in the history of the country, and the sacrifice of those who served as well as the debt of gratitude the country owes them to this day. When Boehner finally got around to presenting at the end of the program he announced that a lapel pin had bee...

Vietnam and Russia are in the final stages of negotiation for the sale of two Gepard-3.9 class (Project 11661) light stealth frigates. The Vietnam People's Navy is also considering the procurement of 4 more Tarantul-class (Project 1241.8). Vietnames People's Navy Gepard 3.9 class (Project 1166.1E) Frigate (picture: Zelenodolsk) Vietnam already has two Russian-made Gepard 3.9 class light frigates, with two more currently undergoing final systems outfitting. The extra procurement of two more frigates would bring the total inventory to 6 vessels of this class in the Vietnam People's Navy fleet. According to its builder, Zelenodolsk shipyard, the Vietnamese Gepard 3.9...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry does not agree with the Marine Corps general nominated to be America's next top uniformed commander that Russia poses an existential threat to the United States, a spokesman said. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry did not share the assessment, even though Russia's actions in Ukraine posed regional security challenges. "The secretary doesn't agree with the assessment that Russia is an existential threat to the United States, nor China, quite frankly," Toner told a regular news briefing. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Thursday that the administration was mindful of Russia's...

WASHINGTON --President Obama said Tuesday that despite differences between the United States and Vietnam over "political philosophy," the two countries are deepening cooperation on health, climate and other issues. Obama spoke following an Oval Office meeting with Nguyen Phu Trong, the head of Vietnam's Communist Party. Trong is the de facto leader of Vietnam despite holding no official government post.

Republican presidential aspirant Bobby Jindal has sought steps by the United States to take the mantel of global leadership saying even non-aligned nations like India and Vietnam are desperate and hungry for American leadership. Trashing the foreign policy of the Obama Administration, Jindal, told the Fox News, “We would work not only with our allies, like Japan and South Korea and Taiwan. We'd work with non-aligned countries like India and Vietnam that are desperate and hungry for American leadership." Jindal, who last month announced his bid for the 2016 presidential elections, was responding to questions on addressing the challenges being...

The powerful head of Vietnam’s Communist Party will travel to the United States for the first time next week, and said he expects President Barack Obama will visit Vietnam later this year. Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong said he hopes to build trust and create more opportunities to improve relations. Trong’s visit comes as the former battlefield foes mark the 20th anniversary of normalized diplomatic ties. The White House said Trong would arrive on July 7, and the leaders would discuss trade, human rights and defense cooperation. It did not confirm a visit by Obama to Vietnam, which would...