SwiftVets.com

[greg_cunn]

John McCain was a POW when Kerry made his speech to congress... We need to send emails to all the talking heads to ask McCain if he heard the speech for the first time as a POW... and if he was being tortured when he heard it.... I think if the answer to both questions are yes... that will put the final nail in Kerrys coffin.

[LewWaters]

Unfortunately, McCain and Kerry kissed and made up

I'd like to find the complete article McCain wrote against Kerry way back when but only have the Newsmax reference to it;

[SwanLady]

Well here ya go:

http://www.ojc.org/powforum/capital/mccain/730514.txt


May 14, 1973
US News & World Report
Inside Story

HOW THE POW's FOUGHT BACK
By John S. McCain III
Lieut. Commander, U.S. Navy


0f the almost unbelievably cruel treatment accorded American prisoners of war in Vietnam, none is more dramatic than that of Lieut. Commander John S. McCain III-Navy flier, son of the admiral who commanded the war in the Pacific, and a prisoner who came in for "special attention" during 51/2 years of captivity in North Vietnam.

Now that all acknowledged prisoners are back and a self-imposed seal of silence is off, Commander McCain is free to answer the questions many Americans have asked:

What was it really like? How prolonged were the tortures and brutality? How did the captured U. S. airmen bear up under the mistreatment-and years spent in solitary? How did they preserve their sanity? Did visiting "peace groups" really add to their troubles? How can this country's military men be conditioned to face such treatment in the future
without crumbling?

Here, in his own words, based on almost total recall, is Commander McCain's narrative of 51/2 years in the hands of the North Vietnamese.


The date was Oct. 26, 1967. 1 was on my 23rd mission, flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone came up-the sky was full of them-and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk dive bomber. It went into an inverted, a most straight-down spin.

I pulled the ejection handle, and was knocked unconscious by the force of the ejection-the air speed was about 500 knots. I didn't realize it at the moment, but I had broken my right leg around the knee, my right arm in three places, and my left arm. I regained consciousness just I landed by parachute in a lake right in the center of Hanoi, one they called the Western Lake. My helmet and my oxygen had been blown off.

I hit the water and sank to the bottom. I think the lake was about 15 feet deep, maybe 20. 1 kicked off the bottom I did not feel any pain at the time, and vas able to rise to the surface. I took a breath of air and started sinking again. Of course, I was wearing 50 pounds, at least, of equipment and gear. I went down and managed to kick up to the
surface once more. I couldn't understand why I couldn't use my right leg or my arm. I was in a dazed condition. I went up to the top again and sank back down. This time I couldn't, get back to the surface. I was wearing an inflatable life preserver-type thing that looked like water wings. I reached down with my mouth and got the toggle between my
teeth and inflated the preserver and finally floated to the top. '

Some North Vietnamese swam out and pulled me to the side of the lake and immediately started stripping me, which is their standard procedure. Of course, this being in the center of town, a huge crowd of people gathered, and they were all hollering and screaming and cursing and spitting and kicking at me.

When they, had most of my clothes off, I felt a twinge in my right knee. I sat up and looked at it, and my right foot was resting next to my left knee, just in a 90-degree position. I said, "My God-my leg!"

That seemed to enrage them I 'don't know why, One of them slammed a rifle butt down on my shoulder, and smashed it pretty badly. Another stuck a bayonet in my foot. The mob was really getting up-tight.

About this time, a guy came up and started yelling at the crowd to leave me alone. A woman came over and propped me up and held a cup of tea to my lips, and some photographer took some pictures. This quieted the crowd down quite a bit. Pretty soon, they, put me on a stretcher, lifted it onto a truck. and took me to Hanoi's main prison. I was taken into a cell and put on the floor. I was still on the stretcher, dressed only in my
skivvies, with a blanket over me.

For the next three or four days, I lapsed from conscious to unconsciousness During this time, I was taken out to interrogation-which we called a "quiz"-several times. That's when I was hit with all sorts of war-criminal charges. This started on the first day. I refused to give them anything except my name. rank, serial number and date of birth.
They beat me around a little bit. I was in such bad shape that when they hit me it would knock me unconscious. They kept saying, "You will not receive any medical treatment until you talk."

I didn't believe this. I thought that if I just held out, that they'd take me to the hospital. I was fed small amounts of food by the guard and also allowed to drink some water. I was able to hold the water down, but I kept vomiting the food.

They wanted military rather than political information at this time. Every time they asked me something, I'd just give my name, rank and serial number and date of birth.

I think it was on the fourth day that two guards came in, instead of one. One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guard my injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size, shape and color of a football. I remembered that when I was a flying instructor a fellow had ejected from his plane and broken his thigh. He had gone into shock, the blood had pooled in his leg, and he died, which came as quite a surprise to
us-a man dying of a broken leg. Then I realized that a very similar thing was happening to me. When I saw it, I said to the guard, "O.K., get the officer." An officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to know very well as "The Bug." He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with. I said, "O.K., I'll give
you military information if you will take me to the hospital." He left and came back with a doctor, a guy that we called "Zorba," who was completely incompetent. He squatted down, took my pulse. He did not speak English, but shook his head and jabbered to "The Bug." I asked, "Are you going to take me to the hospital?" "The Bug" replied, "It's
too late." I said, "If you take me to the hospital, I'll get well."

"Zorba" took my pulse again, and repeated, "It's too late." They got up and left, and I lapsed into unconsciousness.

Sometime later, "The Bug" came rushing into the room, shouting, "Your father is a big admiral; now we take you to the hospital."

I tell the story to make this point: There were hardly any amputees among the prisoners who came back because the North Vietnamese just would not give medical treatment to someone who was badly injured-they weren't going to waste their time. For one thing, in the transition from the kind of life we lead in America to the filth and dirt and infection,
it would be very difficult for a guy to live anyway. In fact, my treatment in the hospital almost killed me. I woke up a couple of times in the next three or four days. Plasma and blood were being put into me. I became fairly lucid. I was in a room which was not particularly small about 15 by 15 feet-but it was filthy dirty and at a lower level, so that every time it rained, there'd be about half inch to an inch of water on the floor. I was not washed once while I was in the hospital. I almost never saw a doctor or a nurse. Doctors came in a couple of times to look at me. They spoke French, not English.

For a guard, I was assigned a 16-year-old kid-right out of the rice fields. His favorite pastime was to sit by my bed and read a book that had a picture in it of an old man with a rifle in his hand sitting on a fuselage of an F-105 which had been shot down. He would point to himself, and slap me and hit me. He had a lot of fun that way. He fed me cause
both my arms were broken. He would come in with a cup that had noodles and some gristle in it, and fill a spoon and put it in my mouth. The gristle was very hard to chew. I'd get my mouth full after three or four spoonfuls, and be chewing away oil it. I couldn't take
any more in my mouth, so he'd just eat the rest himself. I was getting about three or four spoonfuls of food twice a day. It got so that I kind of didn't give a damn even though I tried as hard as I could to get enough to eat.

After I had been there about 10 days, a "gook"-which is what we called the North Vietnamese came in one morning. This man spoke English very well. He asked me how I was, and said, "We have a Frenchman who is here in Hanoi visiting, and would like to take a message back to your family." Being a little naive at the time-you get smarter as you go along with these people-I figured this wasn't a bad deal at all, if this
guy would come to see me and go back and tell my family that I was alive.

I didn't know at the time that my name had been released in a rather big propaganda splash by the North Vietnamese, and that they were very happy to have captured me. They told a number of my friends when I was captured, "We have the crown prince," which was somewhat amusing to me.

"It Looked to Many as if I Had Been Drugged"

They told me that the Frenchman would visit me that evening. About noon, I was put in a rolling stretcher and taken to a treatment room where they tried to put a cast on my right arm. They bad great difficulty putting the bones together, because my arm was broken in three places and there were two floating bones. I watched the guy try to manipulate it
for about an hour and a half trying to get I the bones lined up. This was without benefit of Novocain. It was an extremely painful experience, and I passed it a number of times. He finally just gave up and slapped chest cast on me. This experience was very fatiguing, and as the reason why later, when some TV film was taken, it looked to many people as
if I had been drugged.

When this was over, they took me into a big room with a nice white bed. I thought, "Boy, things are really looking up." My guard said, "Now you're going to be in your new room."

About all hour later in came a guy- called "The Cat." I found out later that he was the man who up until late 1969 was in charge of all the POW camps in Hanoi. He was a rather dapper sort, one of the petty intelligentsia that run North Vietnam. He was from
the political bureau of the Vietnamese Workers Party.

The first thing he did was show me Col. John Flynn's identification card-now Gen. John Flynn-who was our senior officer. He was shot down the same day I was. "The Cat" said-through an interpreter, as he was not speaking English at this time-"The French television man is coming. I said, "Well, I don't think I want to be filmed," where upon he
announced, "You need two operations, and if you don't talk to him, then we will take your chest cast off and you won't get any operations." He said, "You will say that you're grateful to the Vietnamese people, and that you're sorry for your crimes." I told him I
wouldn't do that.

Finally, the Frenchman came in, a man named Chalais-Communist, as I found out later-with two photographers. He asked me about my treatment and I told him it was satisfactory. "The Cat" and "Chihuahua," another interrogator, were in the background telling me to say that I was grateful for lenient and humane treatment. I refused, and when they pressed me, Chalais said, "I think what he told me is sufficient."

Then he asked if I had a message for my family. I told him to assure my wife and others of my family that I was getting well and that I loved them. Again, in the background, "The Cat" insisted that I add something about hoping that the war would be over soon so that
I could go home. Chalais shut him tip very firmly by saying that he was satisfied with my answer. He helped me out of a difficult spot.

Chalais was from Paris. My wife later went to see him and he gave her a copy of the film, which was shown on CBS television in the U. S.

As soon as he left, they put me on the cart and took me back to my old dirty room.

After that, many visitors came to talk to me. Not all of it was for interrogation. Once a famous North Vietnamese writer-an old man with a Ho Chi Minh beard-came to my room, wanting to know all about Ernest Hemingway. I told him that Ernest Hemingway was violently anti-Communist. It gave him something to think about.

Others came in to find out about life in the United States. They figured because my father had such high military rank that I was of the royalty or the governing circle. They have no idea of the way our democracy functions.

One of the men who came to see me, whose picture I recognized later, was Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the hero of Dienbienphu. He came to see what I looked like, saying nothing. He is the Minister of Defense, and also on North Vietnarn's ruling Central Committee.

After about two weeks, I was given an operation on my leg-which was filmed. They never did anything for my broken left arm. It healed by itself. They said I needed two operations on my leg, but because I had a "bad attitude" they wouldn't give me another one. What kind of job they did on my leg, I do not know. Now that I'm back, an orthopedic surgeon is going to cut in and see. He has already told me that they made
the incision wrong and cut all the ligaments on one side.

I was in the hospital about six weeks, then was taken to a camp in Hanoi that we called "The Plantation." This was in late December, 1967. I was put in a cell with two other men, George Day and Norris Overly, both Air Force majors. I was on a stretcher, my leg was stiff and I was still in a chest cast that I kept for about two months. I was down to about 100 pounds from my normal weight of 155.

I was told later on by Major Day that they didn't expect me to live a week. I was unable to sit up. I was sleeping about 18 hours, 20 hours a day. They had to do everything for me. They were allowed to get a bucket of water and wash me off occasionally. They fed
me and took fine care of me, and I recovered very rapidly.

We moved to another room just after Christmas. In early February, 1968, Overly was taken out of our room and released, along with David Matheny and John Black. They were the first three POW's to be released by the North Vietnamese. I understand they had instructions, once home, to say nothing about treatment, so as not to jeopardize those of us still in captivity.

That left Day and me alone together. He was rather banged up himself-a bad right arm, which he still has. He had escaped after he had been captured down South and was shot when they recaptured him. As soon as I was able to walk, which was in March of 1968, Day was moved out.

I remained in solitary confinement from that time on for more than two years. I was not allowed to see or talk to or communicate with any of my fellow prisoners. My room was fairly decent-sized-I'd say it was about 10 by 10. The door was solid. There were no windows. The only ventilation came from two small holes at the top in the ceiling, about 6 inches by 4 inches. The roof was tin and it got hot as hell in there. The room was kind
of dim-night and day-but they always kept on a small light bulb, so they could observe me. I was in that place for two years.

Communication Was Vital "for Survival"

As far as this business of solitary confinement goes-the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it's only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.

It's vital to keep your mind occupied, and we all worked on that. Some guys were interested in mathematics, so they worked out complex formulas in their heads-we were never allowed to have writing materials. Others would build a whole house, from basement on up. I have more of a philosophical bent. I had read a lot of history. I spent days on end going back over those history books in my mind, figuring out where this
country or that country went wrong, what the U. S. should do in the area of foreign affairs. I thought a lot about the meaning of life.

It was easy to lapse into fantasies. I used to write books and plays in my mind, but I doubt that any of them would have been above the level of the cheapest dime novel.

People have asked me how we could remember detailed things like the tap code, numbers, names, all sorts of things. The fact is, when you don't have anything else to think about, no outside distractions, it's easy. Since I've been back, it's very hard for me to remember simple things, like the name of someone I've just met.

During one period while I was in solitary, I memorized the names of all 335 of the men who were then prisoners of war in North Vietnam. I can still remember them.

One thing you have to fight is worry. It's easy to get uptight about your physical condition. One time I had a hell of a hemorrhoid and I stewed about it for about three days. Finally, I said, "Look, McCain, you've never known of a single guy who died of a hemorrhoid." So I just ignored it as best I could, and after a few months it went away.

The story of Ernie Brace illustrates how vital communication was to us. While I was in the prison we called "The Plantation" in October, 1968, there was a room behind me. I heard some noise in there so I started tapping on the wall. Our call-up sign was the old "shave and a haircut," and then the other guy would come back with the two taps, "six
bits."

For two weeks I got no answer, but finally, back came the two taps. I started tapping out the alphabet-one tap for "a," two for "b," and so on. Then I said, "Put your ear to the wall." I finally got him up on the wall and by putting my cup against it, I could talk through it and make him hear me. I gave him the tap code and other information. He gave me
his name-Ernie Brace. About that time, the guard came around and I told Ernie, "0. K., I'll call you tomorrow."

It took me several days to get him back up on the wall again. When I finally did, all he could say was, "I'm Ernie Brace," and then he'd start sobbing. After about two he was able to control his emotions, and within a week this guy was tapping and communicating and dropping notes, and from then on he did a truly outstanding job.

Ernie was a civilian pilot who was shot down over Laos. He had just come from 3 1/2 years' living in a bamboo cage in the jungle with his feet in stocks, and an iron collar around his neck with a rope tied to it. He had nearly lost use of his legs. He escaped three times, and after the third time he was buried in the ground up to his neck.

In those days--still in 1968--we were allowed to bathe every other day supposedly. But in this camp they had a water problem and sometimes we'd go for two or three weeks, a month without a bath. I had a real rat for a turnkey who usually would take me out last. The bath was a sort of a stall-like affair that had a concrete tub. After everyone else had
bathed, there usually was no water left. So I'd stand there for my allotted five minutes and then he'd take me back to my room.

For toilet facilities, I had a bucket with a lid that didn't fit. It was emptied daily; they'd have somebody else carry it, because I walked so badly.

From the time that Overly and Day left me-Overly left in February of 1968, Day left in March-my treatment was basically good. I would get caught communicating, talking to guys through the wall, tapping-that kind of stuff, and they'd just say, "Tsk, tsk; no, no."
Really, I thought things were not too bad.

Then, about June 15, 1968, I was taken up one night to the interrogation room. "The Cat" and another man that we called "The Rabbit" were there. "The Rabbit" spoke very good English.

"The Cat" was the commander of all the camps at that time. He was making believe he didn't speak English, although it was obvious to me, after some conversation, that he did, because lie was asking questions or talking before "The Rabbit" translated what I had said.

The Oriental, as you may know, likes to beat around the bush quite a bit. The first night we sat there and "The Cat" talked to me for about two hours. I didn't know what he was driving at. He told me that he had run the French POW camps in the early 1950s and that he had released a couple of guys, and that he had seen them just recently and they
had thanked him for his kindness. He said that Overly had gone home "with honor."

"They Told Me I'd Never Go Home"

I really didn't know what to think, because I had been having these other interrogations in which I had refused to co-operate. It was not hard because they were not torturing me at this time. They just told me Id never go home and I was going to be tried as a war criminal. That was their constant theme for many months.

Suddenly "The Cat" said to me, "Do you want to go home?"

I was astonished, and I tell you frankly that I said that I would have to think about it. I went back to my room, and I thought about it for a long time. At this time I did not have communication with the camp senior ranking officer, so I could get no advice. I was worried whether I could stay alive or not, because I was in rather bad condition. I had
been hit with a severe case of dysentery, which kept on for about a year and a half. I was losing weight again.

But I knew that the Code of Conduct says, You will not accept parole or amnesty," and that "you will not accept special favors." For somebody to go home earlier is a special favor. There's no other way you can cut it.

I went back to him three nights later. He asked again, "Do you want to go home?" I told him "No." He wanted to know why, and I told him the reason. I said. Alvarez [first American captured] should go first, then enlisted men and that kind of stuff.

"The Cat" told me that President Lyndon Johnson bad ordered me home. He handed me a letter from my wife which she had said, "I wished that you had been one of those three who got to come home." Of course, she had no way to understand the ramifications of this. "Thee Cat" said that the doctors had told him that I could not live unless I got medical treatment in the United States.

We went through this routine and still I told him "No." Three nights later we went through it all over again. On the morning of the Fourth of July, 1968, which happened to be the same day that my father took over as commander in chief of U. S. Forces in the Pacific, I was led into another quiz room.

"The Rabbit" and "The Cat" were sitting there. I walked in and sat down, and "The Rabbit" said, "Our senior wants to know your final answer."

"My final answer is the same. It's 'No."'

"That is your final answer?"

"That is my final answer."

With this "The Cat," who was sitting there with a pile of papers in front of him and a pen in his hand, broke the pen in two. Ink spurted all over. He stood up, kicked the chair over behind him, and said, "They taught you too well" --in perfect English, I might add. He turned, went out and slammed the door, leaving "The Rabbit" and me sitting there. "The
Rabbit" said "Now McCain, it will be very bad for you. Go back to your room.

What they wanted, of course, was to send me home at the same time that my father took over as commander in the Pacific. This would have made them look very humane in releasing the injured son of a top U. S. officer. It also have given them a great lever against my fellow prisoners, because the North Vietnamese were always putting this "class" business on us. They could have said to the others "Look, you poor devils, the
son of the man who is running the war has gone home and left you here. No one cares about you ordinary fellows." I was determined at all times to prevent any exploitation of my father and my family.

There was another consideration for me. Even though I was told I would not have to sign any statements or confessions before I went home, I didn't believe them. They would have got me right up to that airplane and said, "Now just sign this little statement." At that point, I doubt that I could have resisted, even though I felt very strong at the time.

But the primary thing I considered was that I had no right to go ahead of men like Alvarez, who had been there three years before I "got killed"-that's what we say instead of "before I got shot down," because in becoming a prisoner in North Vietnam was like being killed.

About a month and a half later, when the three men were selected for release had reached America, I was set up for some very severe treatment which lasted for the next year and a half.

One night the guards came to my room and said "The camp commander wants to see you. " This man was particularly idiotic individual. We called him "Slopehead."

One thing I should mention here: The camps were set up very similar to their Army. They had a camp commander, who was a military man, basically in charge of the maintenance of the camp, the food, etc. Then they, had they, called a staff officer-actually a political officer--who was in charge of tile interrogations, and provided the propaganda heard oil the radio.

We also had a guy in our camp whom we named "The Soft-Soap Fairy." He was from an important family in North Vietnam. He wore a fancy uniform and was a real sharp cookie, with a dominant position in this camp. "The Soft Soap Fairy," who was somewhat effeminate, was the nice guy, and the camp commander-"Slopehead" -was the bad guy. Old "Soft-Soap" would always come in whenever anything went wrong and
say, "Oh, I didn't know they did this to you. All you had to do was co-operate and everything would have been O.K."

To get back to the story: They took me out of my room to "Slopehead," who said, "You have violated all the camp regulations. You're a black criminal. You must confess your crimes." I said that I wouldn't do that, and he asked, "Why are you so disrespectful of guards?" I answered, "Because the guards treat me like an animal."

When I said that that guards, who were all in the room, about 10 of them-really laid into me. They bounced me from pillar to post, kicking and laughing and scratching. After a few hours of that, ropes were put on me and I sat that night bound with ropes. Then I was taken to a small room. For punishment they would almost always take you to
another room where you didn't have a mosquito net or a bed or any clothes. For the next four days, I was beaten every two to three hours by different guards. My left arm was broken again and my ribs were cracked.

[greg_cunn]

Both of these posts are good.... What we realy need is a direct quote from McCain. If we could get the talking heads to ask McCain directly when was the first time he heard the Kerry speech, that would be great.

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

CDR Paul Galanti (who appeared in the Swifts' ad) is on the Hannity show until Tuesday's show begins. www.hannity.com

He told Hannity that he remembers the speech - commented on the mispronunciation of "Jen-jis Khan" - that hearing Kerry speak later was like a flashback to the camps - hearing that propaganda.

Try to listen to it, if you can. I think only Windows Mdiea Player is working right now, but they may have the mp3 player and Real Player back up, too.

Pretty amazing interview.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother