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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

You're missing the obvious.

Very few people would be capable of enduring torture across nearly six years, while letting numerous other prisoners go free in their stead.

McCain signed up to the military willingly. He comes from a family line of professional soldiers. Who knows how many of those others he put before himself were forcibly drafted into it, plausibly many of them (late 1967 was near peak US troop levels, a lot of soldiers taken POW at that time forward would have been drafted; in 1968 300k were drafted, 1.7m total across the war (38% of which served in Vietnam)).

Personally I'd never agree with the US involvement in the Vietnam civil war. McCain is a hero for his actions in captivity, not for his war fighting.

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If he was drafted, you might have a point. Yet he willingly joined a war that even back then everyone knew was unjust and pointless. I don't see how that makes anyone a hero, no matter what they do in said war. People in this country sure have a really fucked up conception of what a "hero" is.

I am glad in hindsight your understanding of the situation was so clear. I promise you at the time things where not a black and white. Also he joined the military as a graduate of the Navy Academy way before the war in Vietnam was a real thing. He was a brave, honorable man deserving of our respect. It is easy to sit back after the fact and make grand judgments.

“John McCain and I were members of different generations, came from completely different backgrounds, and competed at the highest level of politics. But we shared, for all our differences, a fidelity to something higher – the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed. We saw our political battles, even, as a privilege, something noble, an opportunity to serve as stewards of those high ideals at home, and to advance them around the world. We saw this country as a place where anything is possible – and citizenship as our patriotic obligation to ensure it forever remains that way.

Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did. But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt. Michelle and I send our most heartfelt condolences to Cindy and their family.”

-Barack Obama

There's nothing respectable or heroic about any war. The longer we keep pushing this narrative about soldiers being heroes, the longer we get stuck in this mentality that it's somehow justified or reasonable to start wars, of which we have started so many it's almost impossible to count at this point. Despite his experiences in war and being tortured in Vietnam, he still supported torture and other hideous practices. If that's the kind of man you want to respect and call a hero, go ahead, but don't ask the rest of us to respect someone like that simply because he was a POW. I'm not sure what your definition of hero is, but mine is about as opposite of McCain as one can get.

He never supported torture.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/John_McCain_Homeland_Securi...

Any man or woman that signs up to give up their life for their country is a hero. Period. Soldiers don’t start wars. Soldiers, however, many a times, do give ultimate sacrifices in them.

So we should have not fought Hitler?

Also he did NOT support torture and was an author of a bill that was passed that forbid it.

You are idealistic with no understanding of the facts.

He voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and against the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. At best his record on torture is mixed and clearly despite all his talk against torture and even his sponsoring of one anti torture amendment (McCain Detainee Amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill for 2005) he still supported it later in his career. Those are facts. You haven't provided a single fact in your response, just an insult that alludes to unknown alleged "facts."

McCain was a war hawk who voted for both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars amongst others and constantly supported overthrowing other governments by force. To support a war like Iraq was unconscionable. Everyone knew the allegations that led to to it were bullshit without having any access to classified information. It seems the idea of a hero here in America is one who goes and sends others to die in war for no reason, without thought, without any consideration for the massive loss of human life that entails. These aren't wars of self defense like WWII, to address your question above, they are wars of aggression, hate, cruelty, and racism. Yeah that sure makes a real hero, killing and sending others to kill for a hateful, cruel agenda.

"There's nothing respectable or heroic about any war." -mnm1

Yet, you are okay with WII? Which is it? Are the those that fought in a war you agree with not Heroic?

As to the 2nd Iraq war - A large number of good people were mislead by President G.W.Bush. There is no proof that Senator McCain had any knowledge beyond the reset of the members of the Senate. Furthermore I would argue that having fought in a war, having been tortured for 5 years, he more then others would have a very clear understand the consequences and cost of his vote.

All of you arguments deal in absolutes in a world that has way to many shades of grey. Ideally I agree with you - all war is wrong. Unfortunately not everyone in the world shares your view, and there are still bad people. Senator McCain was far from perfect, but is he quite distance from the monster you make him out to be.

There's nothing respectable or heroic about WWII either. I did not imply that there was. It was, for the US, a war of self defense and that's the only justification I can accept for war. It doesn't make heroes out of the people that fought it either, however. It was just as dark and horrible an event for the allies as it was for the axis. Both sides were dragged down into the ugliest pit of human existence possible. Unfortunately, it only takes one side to drag every other side down into such a dark abyss and turn men into savages. It's horrible that this ever happens; it's even more horrible when it's your own country dragging down everyone else into this dark abyss by starting wars. The worst is when men like McCain lead us into this abyss without logic or reason. Why were we in Iraq when it was Saudis trained in Afghanistan that attacked us? Just because they are Arabs with darker skin and a different religion. That's not much different than the insane reasons Hitler had for starting his war. It's despicable and unforgivable in both cases.

The fact that you see the brave men that ran out of the landing craft on Normandy into a hail of machine gun fire as unheroic just...sorry, we have nothing more to talk about.

McCain joined the Navy in 1958, the US wasn't at war in Vietnam at that time.

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