Navy pilot John Mccain, shot down over Hanoi in 1967, spent five and a half
years in enemy captivity, including 31 months in solitary. Brutally beaten and
otherwise tortured, repeatedly on the edge of death, McCain survived by drawing
on some fierce inner resource. When the North Vietnamese--knowing that McCain's
father was the famous Admiral Jack McCain, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific
forces--tried to release the young flyer early on as a propaganda gesture,
McCain, crippled and skeletal, spat in their faces and let loose such an
outpouring of naval obscenity that the startled North Vietnamese dignitaries
flew backward out of McCain's cell like tumbleweed.
