Let’s talk about fear. Like the fear that Captain John McCain likely felt as he ejected from his damaged jet above Hanoi, North Vietnam in October of 1967, knowing that he was likely going to be captured–if he survived the parachute trip to the ground. Or the fear that McCain may have felt when he landed in Truc Bach Lake and nearly drowned as his parachute wrapped around him in the water. Or the fear he may have felt as the North Vietnamese soldiers crushed his shoulder and bayonetted him after finally making it to shore. Or the fear that McCain experienced learning that he was being transferred to the notorious Hoa Lo Prison–derisively known as the “Hanoi Hilton”.
Imagine the fear Captain McCain experienced knowing that he was going to be beaten and tortured every day. Or the fear created by being kept in solitary confinement–barely able to communicate with some of his other fellow prisoners for three straight years. Or not knowing what treatment he would receive as the son of a Navy Admiral leading attacks on North Vietnam. What must have gone through his mind when he was offered early release by his captors as a propaganda move–and rejecting that offer because the Military Code calls for those captured first to be released first–and there were American pilots kept in that hellhole longer than he had been held?
And what kind of fear would McCain have to overcome after finally being released in March of 1973–five and a half years tortuous years later? Would he still have a wife and family to return to? How would he be received by his fellow military men? Or the general public that had turned against all of those that had merely gone to Vietnam by order of their country and were now treated as enemies? Would he ever be able to use his arms again? And would the memories of the horrors that he had experienced ever go away?
Compare and contrast that with the “fear” a young Donald J. Trump must have felt after his four educational deferments ran out and he faced the draft in 1968. That fear was abated, however, when a doctor–likely well-compensated by Trump’s father–found that young Donald had bone spurs in his heals and would never be able to serve in the military. So for most of the five and a half years while Captain John McCain was tortured on an almost daily basis by his captors in Hanoi, young Mr Trump used the “small gift” of a million dollars that his father gave him to start building a highly-leveraged real estate portfolio.
And it was without fear of reprisal that once-candidate and now-President Trump has bashed the service of John McCain in any and all public forums. He mocked McCain’s POW status saying he “prefers his heroes not to be captured”, questioned his commitment to his country after not voting for a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, claimed that the vote may have been influenced by McCain’s brain cancer, and refusing to issue a full statement on the passing of Senator McCain over the weekend and instead posting a one sentence, half-hearted condolence on Twitter.
It’s a tale of two men–one who faced fear and overcame it in a never-ending service to his country–and another who ran away from it in never-ending service only to himself.
