Were you, John McCain, a good pilot or a bad pilot? Yes or No?

[haele]

74. Hagel was enlisted. McCain was an officer and "aviator" -

I've known a couple of pampered flag officer's kids who got through the service academies or into OCS due to the scrambled eggs their fathers wore on their hats rather than their own capabilities. Clueless bottom of their class butterbars who we still had to call "sir" and "ma'am", and who treated the enlisted like scum.

By making the grade for flight school and becoming a pilot, McCain avoided having to have a Chief rip him a new asshole when he pulled his "admiral-daddy" shit and was able to continue with his career, unlike the feckless line officer "leaders" who took the early retirements and non-drill reservist status granted to them simply by the virtue of being commissioned after seven years of fail.

From the comments of saliors who knew him that I was aquainted with (when I was active duty back in the 1970's and 80's), I got the impression that McCain's focus was never about getting the job done, it was about how the job would make him look.
Of all the POWs who suffered through the Hanoi Hilton, he seemed to eagerly use his celebrity as a political launching point - and that drew a lot of talk from those who had spent time incountry, risking becoming POWs or knowing those who had spent time as a POW themselves. Lots of people were willing to give him a pass, but a former Avionics tech I knew who had been on the Oriskany with him said he was an blue-nosed ass even then when we found out he had been elected to the House from Arizona.

Haele