New footage of a French interview with John McCain when he was a POW in 1968. Watch it all the way to the end…you won’t forget it:
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McCain POW Interview
New footage of a French interview with John McCain when he was a POW in 1968. Watch it all the way to the end…you won’t forget it:
See author page
He had it hard, i don’t know many who could have made it through that. And he NEVER signed the paper denouncing the war and America. 🙂
Good video. Thanks again Curt.
Difficult to understand parts of it with my hearing loss and the French translator speaking over the dialog. I do better with discerning written French than the spoken tongue. I wonder if there exists another version without the translations.
I found these transcripts, but it appears there is only a very heavily edited partial translation of this interview:
http://cryptome.info/cia-mccain-pow/cia-mccain-pow.htm
Liberal bloggers such as Daily Kos are using the partial transcripts to defamate McCain and claim he is no hero. Points they do not consider is:
1) McCain displays sincerity and deep remorse on his face whenever he mentions that his captors broke him.
2) We must remember these were propaganda videos arranged for by Vietnam captors in order to try to discredit America. Not by the Red Cross.
3) POWs were not allowed to be alone with the interviews. Their captors were in attendence off camera and would exhibited their anger if POWs gave an answer they did not like.
http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/viewthread.php?action=printable&tid=551479
I doubt Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, creator of the Daily Kos website would come out crowing so had he himself endured the forms of inhumane mistreatment our Vietnam POWs went through during and following that war. Some so badly tortured they died under the abuse and have never been acconted for. The horrors they went through would make Gitmo alleged torture methods seem like grade school playgroud hazing. Some so deeply scarred that they took their own live rather than submitting themselves to continually relive those events in their minds. Others returned unable to be fully rehabilitated. I’ve known others who still desired to continue to serve even after returning from these camp. One case I know of personally, because I had the honor of service along-side him for a time, concerned a former “Full-Bird” Colonel. He was demoted in rank only for assignment purposes and given duties of lesser responsibilities to allow him to finish his time in service and retire. He retired in his former rank with all applicable benifits in a very touching ceremony. Many of those in attendance and the guest of honor were moved to tears. His retirement ceremony ended with a standing ovation.
I am utterly ashamed and disgusted with the likes of former Private Zuniga, who after only serving 3 years in the U.S. Army, speaks of Vietnam POW veterans like McCain with such venom and vitriol. McCain could have returned and put himself out to pasture on a military disability pension. But for John to come back from that experience and go on to become a national leader is a grand and astounding accomplishment. I may not like all of his political positions, yet he has more than earned praise and respect from myself and any this grateful nation might bestow upon him.
@Rocky_B: I agree with what you say completely. For a man to go through all of that, come back home, and still want to participate in leading the nation, even with all his limitations…? If that’s not patriotic, I don’t know what is. If that’s not love for your country, I don’t know what is. John McCain’s a really good man, a better man than Obama could ever wish to be. He fought hard to get to where he is, he fought hard (literally) to live and still continue to serve his country. For brainless Democrats to call him stupid and incompetent because he was the third from the bottom of the class rankings or to say (like some of our lovely trolls have in the past) that fighting for your country doesn’t qualify you for being a president is just downright despicable. Democrats have no shame, no shame at all.
When he tells the reporter to tell his wife that he loves her it was in the voice of someone who believes he won’t she her again. That was painful and for anybody to try and make character judgments on somebody who was held as a prisoner of war in an attempt to impugn them is despicable.
The far left never tries to make this sort of argument when bringing up any of the people kidnapped and killed by the Islamic extremists.
Notice also that while they address the injury to his right arm, they kept it covered. Also attention to be paid to the fact that he appears to be shirtless. None of which indicates “good” treatment. Remember the outrage over how we handle prisoners we capture today?
BTW in one fleeting moment you can see the VC handlers. When they are lighting his cigarette you get a brief glimpse of the pith helmet that they wore pass in front of the camera and then you can see it on the shadow on the wall. His eyes also are not directed at the camera much but rather to somebody at the foot of the bed.
I can not imagine enduring that for 5 years.
A great man, not much of a conservative and a lousy Republican, but a great American.
One utterly despicable trait of the Left is their love of personal attacks and how they laugh at someone else’s tough times. I used to think that the so-called progressives were just clueless and needed info to be straightened out. Now I just think they hate, including themselves. They just cannot stand that others live for something greater than self. Some of us live for GOD, for family, for country – but they scoff at all of that as a waste of time. They have become an enemy of virutally all that is good in this country.