Monday, September 8, 2008

John McCain's Service Record

Our memory stabbed us this morning (following that 20 oz. cup of Pike Place Roast™©) w/ something from the J. Sidney McCain III piece in the Incredible Shrinking Newspaper™© last wk. To wit:
On Oct. 26, 1967, in the air over Hanoi, an alarm signaled that a surface-to-air missile had locked onto his plane. He should have tried to evade the missile but decided to release his bombs first. The missile took off the plane's right wing; McCain ejected. He landed, with a broken leg and two broken arms, in a lake in the middle of Hanoi. After he was pulled from the water, he was bayoneted in the ankle and groin.
Did you get that? Sid, who took a free education from the U. S. Navy & managed to come in fifth from the bottom of his class, & who caused the destruction of several aircraft (not sure of the numbers, we hear many different stories) in training & otherwise (Note well, waste-fighters & reformers: Those planes cost millions of your taxpayer dollars each!!) was more interested in dropping a couple of 500-lb. dumb bombs that probably wouldn't have hit anything anyway than he was in saving his expensive aircraft & himself (mostly worthless, but a good chunk of money invested in his Annapolis education & flight training) from falling into the hands of the North Vietnamese. We in no way excuse the rotten treatment Fly-Boy Johnny received from Uncle Ho's minions (Reflect, however, so-called patriot, on your possible reaction if, say, a Chinese aviator had been bombing your neighborhood & you got a chance to have a few moments alone w/ the high-altitude baby killer.) but it's not "heroism." It's pathetic survival. If McCain had evaded the NVA SAM he would have continued to fly missions, rather than letting his flight training molder in solitary confinement for five-and-a-half yrs. Nor would we have been out an A-4. That's not serving your country. That's serving yourself, George W. Bush-style; G. W. being another great waster of the military resources of This Great Nation of Ours™© , both by his lack of service during the Vietnam adventure, & his essential destruction of our armed forces since 2003. Do we want a Mr. Macho type w/ the common sense & long-term view of an amoeba running Our Great Nation©™? Bombs away!!

2 comments:

Glennis said...

Interesting take on his shoot-down. Have never seen this analyzed like this - worth thinking about.

OTOH, it's not really relevant. It happened so long ago. He was younger. What's important is his current record, his character (yes, OK, this speaks to character, but people grow....) and his fucking dishonesty and lying on the campaign trail....

M. Bouffant said...

The Editor Speaks:

We came up w/ that take all by ourself, but were just reading Sunday's fishwrapper & one of the letters to their editor said the same thing.

Also, we'd not previously heard that he deliberately decided to go for dropping his bomb load when he knew the SAM was locked on his plane.

Another "goes by the gut" anti-intellect (not "anti-intellectual," but opposed to rational thought itself) American. As evidenced by his Palin choice.