McCain's Military Record

I suppose it was inevitable that McCain's military record would get a raking over. In the 2004 election, the Torture Party showed they had no compunction about trying to destroy Kerry by attacking the most honorable thing he had done in his life. That lesson has not been lost. And if there's one thing everybody knows about McCain, it's that he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 5 years.



So, for the past several days the internet has been swarming with stories about McCain's military service. There are stories that are the left-wing equivalent of "Barack Obama is a Muslim", and there are others that are still not complimentary of McCain, but seem to be getting some things right and are telling us parts of the story we didn't know.

Among the latter is this article at the Huffington Post. It's an interesting article, and for the rest of this post to make sense, you need to read it first.

Okay, now that you've read the article --

It just so happens that my brother, Mike, was also a Navy officer who served in Vietnam. So I sent him the article and asked for his comments on it. He sent me the following, which I thought was so interesting that I asked him if I could share it:

You are well to question the reliability of this story...but it does have something of a ring of truth to it (the story, not the writer's conclusion). One error that jumped out at me was his assertion that since McCain was assigned to an attack squadron, not a fighter squadron, he was at the low end of the Navy flyer totem pole. In the Navy the low end of the Brown Shoe Navy (i.e. aviators) is multi-engined aircraft and helicopters. Mr. Klein would be well advised to steer clear of any Navy attack squadron pilots at this time. It may very well be that McCain was not considered for a fighter squadron because of his marginal flying performance but awarded an attack squadron, not a multi-engine or helo squadron, because of his Navy "heritage" i.e. #2, definitely NOT #3 or #4.

If what Klein says about his marginal record (he crashed a damn lot of aircraft) is true, it would have taken more than his dad and granddad's stars to get him promoted to admiral (ask Randy "Duke" Cunningham) and believe it or not, being a POW is not considered by the Navy to be "career enhancing". It might boost your rank by one grade (gratitude of a thankful nation, etc.) but making flag rank would be bulldozing, not pushing, the envelope.

In short Bob, there's a great deal to this story that sounds believable. But I don't understand why is it important? Again, if true, his various air "disasters" are all in the record. Is there supposed to be some kind of horrible secret that would torpedo his presidential chances. Despite what Mr. Klein may think, making captain is, in the Navy I grew up in, considered par for the course for an academy grad, even those at or near the bottom of their class. And the Navy (again in my opinion) is pretty picky about who gets two star admiral (the rank of one star admiral is confined to war; in peacetime you would be "selected but not promoted" to one star admiral and carry the honorary rank of "commodore" but still wear your captain's rank, 4 stripes, not one star).

Hope this helps. I don't see any monsters in the closet here (and I'm certainly NOT a McCain supporter).

When giving me his consent to share this, Mike said "but understand that now I'll have to avoid my Navy helo and multi-engine pilot friends for awhile."