"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
My Boog Pages
Monday, April 12
A Christmas Story for Easter
Senator John McCain was the son and grandson of admirals, and in due course he himself joined the Navy, became an aviator, and was subsequently sent to Vietnam. A survivor of the horrific fire aboard the carrier Forrestal, he could have returned home, but elected to transfer to another ship and continue flying combat missions.
On October 26, 1967, his plane was shot down over Hanoi. He would spend the next several years as a prisoner of war.
There were different types of guards at the camps where McCain was held. The turnkeys bossed the prisoners around, brought them their meals, took them to be interrogated. There were also "gun guards", soldiers who were assigned to provide security but did not otherwise interact with the men being held there.
One night after an interrogation, McCain was tied up and left on the floor of the room where he had been questioned. A gun guard making his rounds found him there and loosened his bonds. Before the end of his shift, the guard returned and tied the ropes tightly again to avoid detection. In his book Faith Of My Fathers, McCain tells what happened later that year:
On Christmas Day, we were always treated to a better than usual dinner. We were also allowed to stand outside our cells for five minutes to exercise or to just look at the trees and sky. One Christmas, a few months after the gun guard had inexplicably come to my assistance during my long night in the interrogation room, I was standing in the dirt courtyard when I saw him approach me.
He walked up and stood silently next to me. Again, he didn't smile or look at me. He just stared at the ground in front of us. After a few moments had passed he rather nonchalantly used his sandaled foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We both stood wordlessly looking at the cross until, after a minute or two, he rubbed it out and walked away. I saw my good Samaritan often after the Christmas when we venerated the cross together. But he never said a word to me nor gave the slightest signal that he acknowledged my humanity.
