In a (mercifully concise) post today, DWT examines the differences in the legend of John McCain, Navy Hero and the truth of McCain's actual performance as a Naval officer.
It references the outstanding Rolling Stone article by Tim Dickinson and brings together several useful links for greater detail.
Though he was in the Navy a bit before I enlisted, my Naval service and Mr. McCain's were contemporaneous.
I vividly recall, during boot-camp but especially during the fire-fighting training of Seamanship School, that the utter horror and needlessness of the events aboard the Forrestal were hammered into us, over and over again. Normally a raucous bunch, 160 men sat in stunned silence as we contemplated what we had seen and heard.
The Forrestal incident serves the Navy to this day as an example of one of the most egregious examples of what can go wrong aboard a warship. To see the films and hear the stories of the heroic efforts of sailors to save their crew mates from an inferno is to know true bravery and selflessness.
And I recall as well, the scuttle-butt that circulated after the Forrestal films were shown to our company: The tragedy was caused by some Admiral's "hot-shot" middie-pilot son and the Naval Department big-wigs had covered up the details and transferred the asshole in question "for the good of the service and to prevent a keel-hauling". John McCain was the first sailor evacuated.
Special rules for "special" people is all too common in the service. DWT asks, and I second, why this also seems to apply to the MSM's kid-gloves treatment of a putative Commander-in-Chief.
When will Mr. McCain's military record come under the same microscope the MSM used to trivialize the heroic service of Sen. John Kerry?
From one sailor to another, from one disabled vet to another: Sen. McCain, can we have the straight poop, now, please?
Catch you later.....
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