Former P.O.W.: "Why I Cannot Support Senator John McCain for President

I was just listening to Thom Hartman. Turns out that McCain told his little story of the cross being drawn by a Christian while he was a POW, may have come from Ivan Solonevich and not McCain's memory. A lot of other things were pointed out on his show aside from the sudden story of this event that may not have happened and did not appear in his books.

What really got to me was the mention of this. Thom said it was over on Military.com but I wanted to do some digging. Looks like this piece of information has been around since McCain took a stab at the presidency in 1999. If I had read this back then, I wouldn't have voted for him either when he was running against Bush in the primary. I ended up voting for Gore. Back then I thought a lot of McCain, but it looks like he was not honest even then.

Former P.O.W.: "Why I Cannot Support Senator John McCain for President"
Posted by Calpernia
USA at 4/21/2008 3:42 PM and is filed under Mia,veterans,pow,Vietnam,McCain

29 August 1999 - by Mark A. Smith, Major, USA, Retired

"I wish I could support John McCain as a fellow returned POW. I have found I am expected to support him, but I cannot.

If I cannot support him, then the next best thing I find is that I am expected to remain mute and say nothing. As I have proven in a terrible jungle prison, I have the ability to remain mute in the face of those who wished to trade me my very life for just a few words. My remaining mute then, is the driving factor behind my feeling compelled to speak out now.

When John was blown from the sky over that lake in Hanoi, did the enemy already know whose son he was? No, they did not until John told them. He was seriously hurt in his ejection and he needed medical attention. In exchange for what the rest of us would call "First Class" care, he talked. He not only told them who his father, the Admiral was, but he expounded in detail on the Chain of Command and then built himself up by describing himself as one of the "very best pilots". You will not find this form of "resistance" in the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) or in the Code of Conduct. As a matter of fact, it is expressly forbidden. Now, if the US Navy wants to give John a pass on this, it is all right with me, but that free Pass negated John's pointing fingers at others, or at least it should have.

Just ask Robert Garwood, or anyone else who crosses him, if he is a finger pointer. He is the worst.

After McCain was recovered from his wounds, did he cease and desist from making propaganda? The answer is an emphatic "NO". So we go back to the same question again: Should John get a free pass on this from the Navy?

Well, the Navy and some of the Air Force got together and supported the "Return with Honor" scenario. I darn sure did, even from my hole-in-the-ground in Cambodia. But I do not now support, nor would I ever have, if I had known, "Return with Honor" would be some kind of "amnesty" program. The main reason was simple. No one, not Stockdale or the real Senior POW Colonel John Peter Flynn, USAF, had the authority to grant "amnesty" for collaboration in the prisons of Vietnam. The recommendations of these Senior, honored POWs must be given weight in the consideration of charges or amnesty. They could fail to file charges, but they could not grant amnesty or "absolution". The problem is that they did so. Of course, one rarely hears of John Peter Flynn these days, as he somehow ceased to be the Senior POW, and Admiral Stockdale is described by nearly everyone as having filled that role. That it is not true seems to have no import on the media, historians nor my fellow POW's.

Most of all, McCain has never made the correction.

One must realize, it's as if we are some self-promoting, social club rather than a band of honorable men , welded together by common suffering. Our group says a lot of things which are not true. I have seen them stand Ev Alvarez up time and again in front of the nation and proclaim him as "America's longest-held Vietnam POW". It is not true, but this line has gone on for so long, it has entered the history books. Not one time has the man John S. McCain, not the Senator, the sailor, the pilot, the Ex-POW, but the man ever stood up and said; "Now hold it right there, Floyd James Thompson, Major, US Army Special Forces, was captured before all of us".
go here for more

http://blog.barofintegrity.us/2008/04/21/former-pow-why-
i-cannot-support-senator-john-mccain-for-president.aspx

As you can see McCain is not only a bad pilot and student, he is also not a very nice person either. He prides himself of being bad and trying to look good. He wants to run as a veteran but has run away from them when it came to his votes. No wonder why he calls everyone "my friend" because he does not know what one is. Strangers are his friends because a lot of the people who really know him, don't like him at all.