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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums23 trips downtown and why we honor John McCain
You have to get that he didn't have to join the family business. And then having joined there was no need to join one of the most dangerous positions. Sure getting into the Academy was a lock but graduation wasn't. By the skin of his teeth he made it. So they gave him a jet, right? Bullshit-past academy there are two years of flight training you can wash out of every day. He crashed several airplanes but because of either family pull or perhaps flashes of brilliance he was allowed to continue. Onboard Forrestal he flew 5 missions doing SAM suppression which is just as bad as it gets with each being kill or be killed the stakes. As he waited for in his plane for a launch on his 6th mission a plane sited cross deck suffered a voltage surge that accidentally fired a zuni missile which struck either McCain or the next plane to him. This was the initiating event of the Forrestal fire. 138 sailors died. Video shows McCain climbing over his cockpit bow and sliding down the nose before jump clear of the flames from the forward mounted refueling probe. Less than 1 minute later 1000lb bombs that were of Korean vintage and were known to be sweating and unstable exploded killing nearly half of the aircraft fire emergency crews. McCain claimed minor shrapnel wounds but declined treatment when he saw how overtaxed sickbay people were.
The Forrestal returned to the states and their airwing spent a half year in Florida but McCain requested a combat slot and was assign to USS Oriskany CV34. Months before Forrestal returned to action McCain had flown 17 more sam suppression missions. Now on his 23 mission "as part of a twenty-plane strike force against the Yen Phu thermal power plant in central Hanoi that previously had almost always been off-limits to U.S. raids due to the possibility of collateral damage. Arriving just before noon, McCain dove from 9,000 to 4,000 feet on his approach; as he neared the target, warning systems in McCain's A-4E Skyhawk alerted him that he was being tracked by enemy fire-control radar. Like other U.S. pilots in similar situations, he did not break off the bombing run,
and he held his dive until he released his bombs at about 3,500 feet (1,000 m). As he started to pull up, the Skyhawk's wing was blown off by a Soviet-made SA-2 anti-aircraft missile fired by the North Vietnamese Air Defense Command's 61st Battalion.
I don't even need to discuss how badly he was injured or how badly or how long he suffered. He worked six years to get the job and once he had it he took the worst missions (after the sam suppression guys finished other pilots attcked in an area where the sams had just been challenged).
Twenty Fucking Three times he joined into life or death combat voluntarily. He lost and paid the price without whining. You didn't so don't tell me what came after. He paid the fucking toll.
panader0
(25,816 posts)When my dad was stationed at Hickam AFB on Oahu, our house was about 100
yards from the entry to Pearl Harbor. I dated a girl that lived on Ford Island
in the middle of the harbor and had to take a boat to get there.
One of my dad's friends invited us to breakfast on the Oriskany.
I remember standing on the deck, and being lowered into the deck below.
As a 14 YO kid, I thought it was pretty cool.
As Forrestal headed to port for repairs, McCain volunteered to join the undermanned VA-163 "Saints" squadron on board the USS Oriskany.[94] This carrier had earlier endured its own deck fire disaster[95] and its squadrons had suffered some of the heaviest losses during Rolling Thunder. The Saints had a reputation for aggressive, daring attacks, but paid the price:[96] in 1967, one-third of their pilots were killed or captured, and all of their original fifteen A-4s had been destroyed.[96] After taking some leave in Europe and back home in Orange Park, Florida,[97] McCain joined Oriskany on September 30, 1967,[96] for a tour he expected would finish early the next summer.[98] He volunteered to fly the squadron's most dangerous missions right away, rather than work his way up to them.[99] During October 1967, the pilots operated in constant twelve-hour on, twelve-hour off shifts.[100] McCain would be awarded a Navy Commendation Medal for leading his air section through heavy enemy fire during an October 18 raid on the Lac Trai shipyard in Haiphong.[101] On October 25, McCain successfully attacked the Phúc Yên Air Base north of Hanoi through a barrage of anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile fire; credited with destroying one aircraft on the ground and damaging two, the raid would garner him the Air Medal.[101] Air defenses around Hanoi were at this point the strongest they would be during the entire war.
john657
(1,058 posts)Thank you for that flotsam.
As a fellow Vietnam Veteran, I will never, ever, slander or denigrate a fellow Veteran.
I was a door gunner on a Huey during my 2 tours in Vietnam, but for the grace of god, I could have ended up in the Hanoi Hilton also.
flotsam
(3,268 posts)Last edited Mon Aug 27, 2018, 10:45 PM - Edit history (1)
I am not. I merely turned some wrenches stateside. I know what door gunners did.Thank you.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)...and that he was nicknamed "songbird" by his captors. I hope that person is gone -- they had no concept that even a political opponent can be a patriot and an honorable man.
flotsam
(3,268 posts)whereas uninformed opinions truly are like assholes. This ain't the civil war and there were no 10 year old drummer boys-if anyone claims to be a rock and roller and they aren't over 65 years old they wasn't. And as Kris Kristofferson sang "If you ain't bombed in Birmingham, then you aren't one of us. I ain't and I guaran-fuckin-tee that they aren't either.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)MIRT is probably busy in the sock drawer these days.
john657
(1,058 posts)from Sen. McCain's cellmate in the Hanoi Hilton.
flotsam
(3,268 posts)and thank you for this also.
john657
(1,058 posts)Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)He said the Ammo was so hot it burned their hands throwing it over the side. Most of his burns came from the bubbling Avfuel. He said most of his team vanished from the fuel. He said he was lucky because a explosion blew his off the flight deck and ended up in a
gang way where the Medics treated him for his burns. He spent a year in Hospital in Japan and later discharged.
flotsam
(3,268 posts)who was probably never given his due. An action guy I knew said the difference was who ran towards the danger. Thank him from me, please.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)his lungs were badly damaged as a result. Sure he left this world with a smile on his face. He owned a duplex with wife number one upstairs with four kids,while he and wife number two occupied the lower unit with four more kids. Interesting to say the least.
flotsam
(3,268 posts)It would be worth the trip just to hear that story. May he rest gently.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)in the same Metro Area. Our paths would cross at least once a week. Oh boy,is all I can say. He after all,was one of thirteen kids. So any crazy jokes oft times were true. Went to his fifty year birthday party. Darn strange with all his brothers and sisters and their kids as well as his kids. Oh btw,wife number one and wife number two were either cousins or best friends,never really knew. They looked like sisters to say the least and I never asked. Always figured,he had enough to worry about.
Stinky The Clown
(67,697 posts)He was the real deal.
I disagreed with most h=of his politics, but I ALWAYS respected him.
Our home has a flagpole in the front yard. The kind you have to hoist up by hand. It is at half mast right now for this fellow sailor whose career makes my stint back around the same time as damned near meaningless.
flotsam
(3,268 posts)He was. I believe you were Navy and I thought a Bridgeport boy. In my last incarnation I was "Catnhatnh" and a slightly younger (ha-ha) customer at the old Ahern's Playground and customer of a certain Italian Market with provolone that simply doesn't exist north of Boston. I've disagreed occasionally but also missed you...
On Edit-And the cheese too-the cheese too!
Stinky The Clown
(67,697 posts)Yup, Navy.
flotsam
(3,268 posts)if honorably undertaken. Do not ever equate lack of opportunity to lack of significance. Wear your service with pride.