To my Republican brothers & sisters.
I ask you read this with an open mind.
Try, please?????

Those of you who say, at least McCain served in Nam.
Kerry did too & look what the Swift Boaters tried to do, with their lies.

Stan


This is a comment on a posting on John McCain.
He admits to this in his book.

The entire posting can be found on the link below the
comment:

  The reprint of Dr. Butler's March article from Military Times needs all the exposure it can receive, even if the original piece was published five months ago and was totally ignored by everyone in the media until
yesterday.

It needs re-telling because McCain actively cultivates the image of a “warrior ” and “war hero,” the genuine article, toting a carefully crafted impression around like a Louis Vittuon carry-all. The problem is that the supposedly genuine Vittuon actually is a cheap knock-off, a piece of counterfeit luggage.

After years of McCain perpetuating the myth, it’s time someone publicly calls McCain what he is: An exaggerator of his military experience and fabricator of his status as war hero.

In fact, Pentagon records show that the Man Who Would Be President was a
not-very-good Naval Academy student who preferred parties to studying and
graduated in the bottom five of his Annapolis class; a mediocre pilot who crashed three jet fighters during training before being shipped out to ‘Nam where he crashed a fourth; an insubordinate junior officer who got
shot down over Hanoi because he disobeyed direct orders to abandon his 23rd
mission and return to the USS Forrestal; and, as a POW, provided so much intelligence – admittedly, bits of it false – and co-operated so extensively with the North Vietnamese in exchange for favourable treatment over a three year period that fellow prisoners gave him the derisive nickname “Songbird.” In propaganda, the North Vietnamese even used his nickname in a news release about McCain, not understanding it was an insult by prisoners disgusted with his behaviour.

Put bluntly, the closest John McCain has ever come to a war hero was when he sat on his grandfather’s lap as a child. The first John McCain commanded naval aviation at the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

In other words, John McCain III (or “Admiral Three Sticks” as a Republican Senate aid called him over drinks one night) not only changes his positions on substantive issues in the campaign, he totally changes the
reality of his “ service to my country.” No wonder he has trouble staying
on message as a candidate; he can’t keep the story of his life straight.

By repeatedly violating the Military Code of Conduct while a POW, he placed other naval airmen in jeopardy. Unclassified North Vietnamese and Pentagon records confirm that he provided Hanoi with detailed
information about the number of airplanes on the Forrestal, flight paths into and out of North Viet Nam, how targets were selected, the positioning of rescue ships and the success rate of attacks from fighter-bombers based on his carrier. As far as can be discovered, the only thing he deceived the North Vietnamese about was the names of the pilots with whom he flew, for which he substituted the names of the Green Bay Packer’s offensive linemen. McCain has dined out on the Packer story for decades, omitting the other, less noble, portions of his captivity.

That his father and grandfather were Annapolis grads kept him from being
booted out of the Navy, his family background also contributed to McCain being awarded 28 service medals. He received slightly more than one medal for each of his 23 missions.

“The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down,” explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs.

Eventually, even the Navy was on to McCain. He "retired" after being told
twice that he would not make Admiral like his forefathers.

For the original article:
http://www.alternet.org/election08/95825/?page=entire