page_title: Early life and military career of John McCain
section_title: Return to United States
hierarchical_section_title: Early life and military career of John McCain / Military career / Return to United States
caption_attribution_description: English: John McCain in an interview shortly after his release from POW camp.
context_page_description: The early life and military career of John Sidney McCain III spans the first forty-five years of his life. McCain's father and grandfather were admirals in the United States Navy. McCain was born on August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone, and attended many schools growing up as his family moved among naval facilities. McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958. He married the former Carol Shepp in 1965; he adopted two children from her previous marriage and they had another child together.
  As a naval aviator, McCain flew attack aircraft from carriers. During the Vietnam War, he narrowly escaped death in the 1967 Forrestal fire. On his twenty-third bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder in October 1967, he was shot down over Hanoi and badly injured. He subsequently endured five and a half years as a prisoner of war, including periods of torture. In 1968, he refused a North Vietnamese offer of early release, because it would have meant leaving before other prisoners who had been held longer. He was released in 1973 after the Paris Peace Accords.
context_section_description: Upon his return to the United States a few days later, McCain was reunited with his wife Carol and his family. She had suffered her own crippling, near-death ordeal during his captivity, due to an automobile accident in December 1969 that left her hospitalized for six months and facing twenty-three operations and ongoing physical therapy. Businessman and POW advocate Ross Perot had paid for her medical care. By the time McCain saw her, she was four inches (ten centimeters) shorter, on crutches, and substantially heavier. As a returned POW, McCain became a celebrity of sorts: The New York Times ran a story and front-page photo of him getting off the plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines; he authored a thirteen-page cover story describing his ordeal and his support for the Nixon administration's handling of the war in U.S. News & World Report; he participated in parades in Orange Park and elsewhere and made personal appearances before groups, where he showed strong speaking skills; he was given the key to the city of Jacksonville, Florida; and a photograph of him on crutches shaking the hand of President Richard Nixon at a White House reception for returning POWs became iconic. The McCains became frequent guests of honor at dinners hosted by Governor of California Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan, and John McCain made a strong impression speaking at a large prayer breakfast hosted by the governor. McCain had admired Ronald Reagan while in captivity and afterwards, believing him to be a man who saw honor in Vietnam service and a potential leader who would not lead the nation into a war it was unwilling to win.
  McCain underwent three operations and other treatment for his injuries, spending three months at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Jacksonville. Psychological tests, given to all the returning POWs, showed that McCain had "adjusted exceptionally well to repatriation" and had "an ambitious, striving, successful pattern of adjustment". McCain told examiners that he withstood his ordeal by having "Faith in country, United States Navy, family, and God". Unlike many veterans, McCain did not experience flashbacks or nightmares of his Vietnam experience, although due to the association with prison guards, the sound of keys rattling would cause him to "tense up".
  McCain was promoted to commander effective July 1973 and attended the National War College in Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. during the 1973–1974 academic year. There he intensively studied the history of Vietnam and the French and American wars there, and wrote "The Code of Conduct and the Vietnam Prisoners of War", a long paper on the Vietnam POW experience as a test of the U.S. Code of Conduct. By the time he graduated, he concluded that mistakes by American political and military leaders had doomed the war effort. He accepted the right of the anti-war movement in the U.S. to have exercised their freedom to protest, and he adopted a live-and-let-live attitude towards those who had evaded the draft. Nor did the vast changes in American social mores that had taken place during his absence bother him, as it did many other former POWs. McCain returned to Saigon in November 1974; he and a couple of other former POWs received the National Order of Vietnam, that country's highest honor. He also spoke at the South Vietnamese war college, five months before Saigon fell. McCain resolved not to become a "professional POW" but to move forward and rebuild his life. Few thought McCain could fly again, but he was determined to try, and during this time he engaged in nine months of grueling, painful physical therapy, especially to get his knees to bend again.
caption: McCain giving an interview to the press on April 24, 1973, after his return from Vietnam.  Photo by US News and World Report.
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