Question for DUers: Do you consider John McCain to be a war hero?

[Mrdie]

123. The Soviets actually mentioned McCain

I'm involved in efforts to scan books from the 1930s-80s (with permission if copyright is an issue, which it isn't for Soviet books.) You can find such works here, if you're interested.

Anyway, a multilingual Russian-English photobook called The Vietnam Story written by a Soviet journalist and published in 1972, has a brief mention of McCain on page 120:

"Your name?"
"John Sydney McCain"
"Rank?"
"Major, United States Navy."
The questions were addressed to an American pilot dressed in a war prisoner's robe. He was shot down over Hanoi in one of the fiercest air battles in the war on October 26, 1967. It was his 23rd mission over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and it ended in a lake in Hanoi known as Silvery Rushes, where he came down after bailing out from his burning plane. In that raid his group lost three planes.
"What is your opinion of Hanoi's air defences?"
"As for the ground-to-air missiles," said the Major, a son and grandson of US admirals, "I think they are quite accurate, and we often cannot evade them. I had almost reached my target when I suddenly saw the missiles heading towards me. Then there was a terrific blast... And now I'm a prisoner..."