John McCain
John McCain was a United States senator for Arizona for thirty-one years, the Republican nominee for president in 2008, and a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five and a half years. Born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 into a naval family — his father and grandfather were both four-star admirals — he graduated fifth from bottom at Annapolis and became a carrier pilot. He survived the fire aboard USS Forrestal in July 1967, which killed 134 men. Three months later his A-4 Skyhawk was shot down over Hanoi; he broke both arms and a leg ejecting, and was beaten and bayoneted by the crowd that pulled him from the lake. When his captors discovered his father was a senior admiral they offered early release, and he refused it because prisoners taken before him had not been freed. He was tortured, attempted suicide, and eventually signed a confession he considered a permanent personal failure. He was released in 1973 and never regained full use of his arms. He entered Congress in 1982 and the Senate in 1986. He was implicated in the Keating Five savings-and-loan scandal in 1989, reprimanded for poor judgement, and afterwards made campaign finance reform his cause, passing the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. He built a reputation for breaking with his party — on immigration reform, on climate, on torture, which he opposed absolutely on the basis of his own experience. He lost the 2000 nomination after a vicious primary in South Carolina, and lost the 2008 election to Barack Obama, having chosen Sarah Palin as running mate. In July 2017, with brain cancer, he cast the vote that killed the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. He died in 2018.
- Lived: 1936 CE – 2018 CE
- Nationality: American
- Roles: senator
