Retired AF Guy
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Just days after saying he will refuse any further treatment for his brain cancer, John McCain, US Senator and war hero, has passed away. From the Washington Post:
John McCain passes away at 81
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FJAG
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A big loss for the States. I din't always agree with his positions but believed that he always had the country at heart and that he was one of an ever decreasing minority of Republicans that would work hard to achieve bipartisan support.
Regretfully there are far too few John McCains left in Congress. I think his influence will be missed more than Americans realize right now.
Regretfully there are far too few John McCains left in Congress. I think his influence will be missed more than Americans realize right now.
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My sympathies to his family.I guess he will be buried at the Naval Academy a genuine hero.I wouldn't be surprised if he will lie in state at the Capitol he deserves the honor.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/08/26/mccains-body-arrives-in-phoenix-crowd-gathers-to-pay-respects.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/08/26/mccains-body-arrives-in-phoenix-crowd-gathers-to-pay-respects.html
FJAG said:A big loss for the States. I din't always agree with his positions but believed that he always had the country at heart and that he was one of an ever decreasing minority of Republicans that would work hard to achieve bipartisan support.
Regretfully there are far to few John McCains left in Congress. I think his influence will be missed more than Americans realize right now.
Couldn't agree more, and was going to write something similar but I think you nailed it.
That man did more for the United States throughout his life than almost anybody else, and worked very hard to keep the gigantic & often times messy machine of the US military on track on the political/financial side.
A true statesman & one of the very few left.
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Former President Barack Obama, who defeated McCain in the 2008 election, issued a statement Saturday night praising McCain for viewing public service as a "patriotic obligation:"
After the death of 2008 presidential candidate and United States Senator John McCain Saturday, the man who defeated him in the race for the Oval Office released a statement mourning his passing.
"John McCain and i were members of different generations, came from completely different backgrounds, and competed at the highest level of politics. But we shared, for all our differences, a fidelity to something higher-the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed. We saw our political battles, even, as a privilege, something noble, an opportunity to serve as stewards of those high ideals at home, and to advance them around the world. We saw this country as a place where anything is possible - and citizenship as our patriotic obligation to ensure it forever remains that way.
"Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did. But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John's best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt. Michelle and I send our heartfelt condolences to Cindy and their family."
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/25/17782666/barack-obama-statement-mccain-joe-biden
After the death of 2008 presidential candidate and United States Senator John McCain Saturday, the man who defeated him in the race for the Oval Office released a statement mourning his passing.
"John McCain and i were members of different generations, came from completely different backgrounds, and competed at the highest level of politics. But we shared, for all our differences, a fidelity to something higher-the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed. We saw our political battles, even, as a privilege, something noble, an opportunity to serve as stewards of those high ideals at home, and to advance them around the world. We saw this country as a place where anything is possible - and citizenship as our patriotic obligation to ensure it forever remains that way.
"Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did. But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John's best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt. Michelle and I send our heartfelt condolences to Cindy and their family."
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/25/17782666/barack-obama-statement-mccain-joe-biden
daftandbarmy
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Obituary: John McCain
The navy pilot, senator and presidential candidate, died on August 25th, aged 81
He did not want Vietnam to define his career, but inevitably it did. (Neither did he want to be called a hero, but inevitably he was.) Vietnam brought the best moment of his life, when he refused early release from prison and gained, for the first time in his self-indulgent life up till then, a serious sense of a shared purpose larger than himself. And Vietnam brought the worst moment, when he signed a forced confession admitting that he was a “black criminal”. He never quite got over the disgrace of that.
Also looming over him were the straight-backed shadows of his grandfather and father, both admirals, both steeped in duty, honour, country. When he felt proud of himself, it was also on their behalf. When he was ashamed it was because he had also let them down. By 1981, when he knew he would never make full admiral and had wrecked his first marriage with affairs, old political ambitions resurfaced, as another sort of national service into which he could plunge himself.
Discipline was the hard part. He had always struggled with it, whether at Annapolis, where his cheeky behaviour led to graduation fifth from the bottom of his class, or in flight training, where he drank, chased tail and had a good time generally. But his worst failing was his temper, his sheer rapid-fire, finger-jabbing rage against the jerks who frustrated him. He excused it as impatience, especially at the crawling way Congress worked and the failure of parties to work across the aisle. (Democrats made great partners: he teamed up with Russ Feingold for his greatest legislative achievement, campaign-finance reform, with Joe Lieberman on cap-and-trade bills, with Ted Kennedy on immigration reform.) Or he called his temper passion, especially for curbing pork-barrel spending—and if it ever went away, he was ready for the old soldier’s home.
Truth and principles. Those were his watchwords, though political life made them tricky. On his national campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, he chatted candidly to the press, but in the vain hope that they would lay off him. In Congress he took dogged stands against Big Tobacco, global warming and over-regulation, but swerved on health-care reform and balanced budgets, as well as immigration in the end. This, and his openness to Democrats, earned him a maverick reputation. He preferred to think he was an honest free agent, still conservative most of the time, but not in thrall to the hard-right Republican base. That principle was dented whenever he ran for higher office—most famously when, in 2008, he made a naked appeal to the base by picking the ludicrously unqualified Sarah Palin as his running-mate.
The need for war
His greatest consistency lay in urging wars abroad, wherever winnable, and for him both Afghanistan and Iraq fell under that head. America had a duty to spread freedom and democracy, by force of arms if necessary. He longed to go into Syria to support the rebels, to send heavy weapons to Ukraine and to “bomb, bomb, bomb” Iran, as he sang once. When it came to wars, he suspended his usual backing for tax cuts and balanced budgets. Even Vietnam, he thought, should have been winnable, if those idiot civilian commanders had bombed enough.
That said, the gung-ho approach of Donald Trump left him cold. They might share a party, but he had nothing to do with him and the half-baked nationalism he promoted. The brain-cancer diagnosis in July 2017 freed his tongue, and tested his mettle, in all the ways he relished. The talk was never straighter, the stance never more upright, than when he called on his fellow-Republicans not just to endure, but to resist.
https://www.economist.com/obituary/2018/08/26/obituary-john-mccain
The navy pilot, senator and presidential candidate, died on August 25th, aged 81
He did not want Vietnam to define his career, but inevitably it did. (Neither did he want to be called a hero, but inevitably he was.) Vietnam brought the best moment of his life, when he refused early release from prison and gained, for the first time in his self-indulgent life up till then, a serious sense of a shared purpose larger than himself. And Vietnam brought the worst moment, when he signed a forced confession admitting that he was a “black criminal”. He never quite got over the disgrace of that.
Also looming over him were the straight-backed shadows of his grandfather and father, both admirals, both steeped in duty, honour, country. When he felt proud of himself, it was also on their behalf. When he was ashamed it was because he had also let them down. By 1981, when he knew he would never make full admiral and had wrecked his first marriage with affairs, old political ambitions resurfaced, as another sort of national service into which he could plunge himself.
Discipline was the hard part. He had always struggled with it, whether at Annapolis, where his cheeky behaviour led to graduation fifth from the bottom of his class, or in flight training, where he drank, chased tail and had a good time generally. But his worst failing was his temper, his sheer rapid-fire, finger-jabbing rage against the jerks who frustrated him. He excused it as impatience, especially at the crawling way Congress worked and the failure of parties to work across the aisle. (Democrats made great partners: he teamed up with Russ Feingold for his greatest legislative achievement, campaign-finance reform, with Joe Lieberman on cap-and-trade bills, with Ted Kennedy on immigration reform.) Or he called his temper passion, especially for curbing pork-barrel spending—and if it ever went away, he was ready for the old soldier’s home.
Truth and principles. Those were his watchwords, though political life made them tricky. On his national campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, he chatted candidly to the press, but in the vain hope that they would lay off him. In Congress he took dogged stands against Big Tobacco, global warming and over-regulation, but swerved on health-care reform and balanced budgets, as well as immigration in the end. This, and his openness to Democrats, earned him a maverick reputation. He preferred to think he was an honest free agent, still conservative most of the time, but not in thrall to the hard-right Republican base. That principle was dented whenever he ran for higher office—most famously when, in 2008, he made a naked appeal to the base by picking the ludicrously unqualified Sarah Palin as his running-mate.
The need for war
His greatest consistency lay in urging wars abroad, wherever winnable, and for him both Afghanistan and Iraq fell under that head. America had a duty to spread freedom and democracy, by force of arms if necessary. He longed to go into Syria to support the rebels, to send heavy weapons to Ukraine and to “bomb, bomb, bomb” Iran, as he sang once. When it came to wars, he suspended his usual backing for tax cuts and balanced budgets. Even Vietnam, he thought, should have been winnable, if those idiot civilian commanders had bombed enough.
That said, the gung-ho approach of Donald Trump left him cold. They might share a party, but he had nothing to do with him and the half-baked nationalism he promoted. The brain-cancer diagnosis in July 2017 freed his tongue, and tested his mettle, in all the ways he relished. The talk was never straighter, the stance never more upright, than when he called on his fellow-Republicans not just to endure, but to resist.
https://www.economist.com/obituary/2018/08/26/obituary-john-mccain
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I have incredible respect for any man or woman who can endure years of captivity in trying conditions, but what I respect the most about Sen. McCain was his ability to admit when he was wrong, and how he should have done things in retrospect - not perfect, but reputable and honourable.
RIP, sir.
RIP, sir.
Retired AF Guy
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John McCain's favourite poem was "The Cremation of Sam McGee".
https://www.weeklystandard.com/andrew-ferguson/reagan-mccain-and-sam-mcgee
I like the discussion of Ronald Reagan hitting it off with the Queen Mother over a shared love of "The Shooting of Dan McGee"
https://www.weeklystandard.com/andrew-ferguson/reagan-mccain-and-sam-mcgee
I like the discussion of Ronald Reagan hitting it off with the Queen Mother over a shared love of "The Shooting of Dan McGee"
daftandbarmy
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dapaterson said:
It's 'Dan McGrew' of course, but we'll let it go as we Canadians are so polite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shooting_of_Dan_McGrew
daftandbarmy said:It's 'Dan McGrew' of course, but we'll let it go as we Canadians are so polite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shooting_of_Dan_McGrew
The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and The Cremation of Sam McGee are two separate poems, both by Robert Service.
My three years in Yukon would be wasted if i weren’t able to Kool-Aid guy my way through the wall into this thread to make that clarification.
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tomahawk6 said:
Lifting and carrying people can be awkward when partners vary in height.
Interestingly, they seemed to have the most difficulty at ( what appeared to be ) the foot end.
QUOTE
"Stronger officers stand at the head of the coffin, which is heavier than the opposite end: Most of the body’s weight is contained between the head and waist."
Men in Blue, Bearing a Brother They Didn’t Know
"A major and very practical factor for an officer’s selection is height."
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/27/nyregion/for-nypd-officers-hours-of-preparing-to-perform-grim-task.html
END QUOTE
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tomahawk6 said:
This may be of interest,
QUOTE
The Requirements of the Army Honor Guard
June 25, 2018
Males must be between 5 feet, 10 inches and 6 feet, 4 inches tall in order to be in the Honor Guard, while females must be between 5 feet, 8 inches and 6 feet, 2 inches tall.
END QUOTE
Blackadder1916
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mariomike said:
I noticed the opposite. Caskets (even in US military) are always carried feet first. The canton, or union, of the flag (the stars) is placed to align with the left head and shoulder of the deceased. It was the bearers at the head who appeared to have the most difficulty. They may have appeared to be awkward because (unlike Canadian drill) they kept in a normal cadence step, i.e. left, right. left . . . ; if they had done it our way, . . . inside foot, outside, inside . . . it is not as jerky and makes the carry a little easier. Still not a bad showing for the Arizona National Guard. But Senator McCain's naval career was a bumpy ride, he may have been amused that his final trip wasn't picture perfect. It seems to fit the man.
A great loss.
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Blackadder1916 said:
True. I didn't notice that.
"Proper Draping on a Casket. The flag code specifies that when a casket is closed, the flag must be draped across the casket so that the "field" of stars covers the head and over the deceased's left shoulder."
https://www.google.com/search?q=flag+draped+casket&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-CA:IE-Address&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GGHP_en-GBCA592&gws_rd=ssl
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I was surprised that the Navy didn't dispatch a pall bearer or two as McCain was Navy. When my dad died a full burial party came from Ft Knox.Local vets get an Honor Guard from the American Legion.Anyway burial for McCain is Sunday and I look forward to the burial at Annapolis.The entire brigade of middies may turn out.
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