Easier to see on a large flatscreen HD, but there’s a moment then his mouth parts…..his teeth are completely messed up. It looks like some are just broken off.

aquaviva on September 12, 2008 at 11:21 AM

They were.

And I echo others when talking about injuries. 3 really bad car accidents over 20 years ago have left me with a neck that is a whisper away from paralyzing me and a hip joint that can’t be unfrozen, leaving me with a limp. I understand what it took McCain to walk those steps to salute his Officer without limping – the pain would have been excrutiating.

His story has always been remarkable – but that video gives new focus on just what it took for those men to endure being a POW.

Wow – I am completely humbled, to my knees.

McCain*Palin 2008

juliesa on September 12, 2008 at 10:51 AM

It’s really hard to imagine a human being living through all that.

Everything the ACLU has ever complained about the terrorists treatments, or the human rights organization that claimed that the US was the gulag of our time ….. makes me have even less sympathy for them. Knowing what real torture, real pain and real mistreatment of prisoners looks like.

Easier to see on a large flatscreen HD, but there’s a moment then his mouth parts…..his teeth are completely messed up. It looks like some are just broken off.

McCain looks relatively good in that in that video, because he had been shot down only a few days before. However, after two months in the hospital, McCain was down to 100 lbs, and was completely covered in filth. He couldn’t feed or care for himself with two broken arms, and the NV barely fed him enough to keep alive. For example, they wouldn’t give enough time to chew his food before shoving more food in, and the food wound up all over his face. They did not clean him or shave him the entire time. Finally, he was taken from the hospital and dumped in a cell with two other POWs to die.

The other POWs were sure he was about to die. It took them days to clean off the encrusted filth, and eventually they were able to get enough food and fluids into him to save his life.

After five years of captivity, the shoulder had grown itself a new socket, and there was nothing the American doctors could do at that late stage to fix the old arm and shoulder injuries, so they didn’t do any surgery.

They did do surgery on his knee, and that’s why you see McCain on crutches in later pictures.

McCain/Palin ‘08

Does anyone know how I could download a copy of this video
KMC1 on September 11, 2008 at 12:38 PM
I guess you missed this comment posted earlier on this thread.

alflauren on September 11, 2008 at 11:52 AM

Don’t fret none. Most here don’t read or comprehend previous comments.

Chimpy on September 11, 2008 at 3:27 PM

Yes. Thank you so much for your valuable input. Do you feel all big and tough now? Well, that’s good….

And to the poster who linked the flash file – THANK YOU – that was really nice of you!

March 14, 1973 – John McCain is liberated from a communist POW camp after 5 years of brutality and torture

March 14, 1973 – Barry Obama hangs out with Frank Marshall Davis, and receives instruction in being a good communist

indythinker on September 11, 2008 at 12:51 PM

Then torches up a few bowls with the Chumba crew, does a little blow and fills out his racial preference paper work.

We report, you decide.

I had a client who had survived 3 and a half years in a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines. He had a scar on his back as big as the palm of my hand. He said is was made by a 60 caliber weapon. I wondered how he survive with a wound like that. He still has malaria. He weighed about 70lbs when liberated. He was a tough old bird.

BTW, is Ed having a show today? Work was cancelled because of Ike, so I’m home.

pullingmyhairout on September 11, 2008 at 1:27 PM

You are in my thoughts and prayers.

How much pain did he have to endure to take those three steps without a limp? To salute his Officer as a Naval Officer should? This man has honor imprinted on his bones.

gridlock2 on September 11, 2008 at 1:09 PM

That made me cry.

I hope several people see this. Not just for McCain, but for all those old soldiers.

Oh my goodness, I just choked up.

I’m currently recording my dad’s WWII POW experience, which he is finally starting to reveal for our family and for the Library of Congress. He is 88 and this is his final duty to his bomber group (at least that’s how I had to frame it up for him), as he’s quite ill.

He says that John McCain’s whole experience as “a prisoner of someone else’s country” shows more about his character than any other single thing. He acknowleges that he has a unique perspective but he feels that John McCain’s purely devoted love and gratitude for his country resonated loudly in his convention speech. I wish he could see this.

Moxie on September 11, 2008 at 12:07 PM

I wish my dad could see it too, but he died many years ago. I, too, did a memorial for my father, the veteran of three wars. I agree that the still picture of McCain is very striking and quote poignant. God bless him.

/sarc

My Hats are off to them all. God Bless them!

upinak on September 11, 2008 at 11:54 AM

You’ve hit it, upinak. My late dad, in the Air Force at the time, said that they didn’t believe they were being freed. Expected the plane to be shot down at take-off, etc. As soon as the planes would take off they would tell the POW’s they were now back in the US (or something akin to that)and they’d just go crazy, cheering, clapping, crying, etc. I still tear up thinking about it. And they’d drink beer all the way home!! God Bless them, indeed.

” Um, eh, uh, well, as a young man, I considered becoming a POW at one time too.”

You know these shameless Republicans — they’ll do anything for a vote, and they’re cagey enough to plan their dastardly campaigns decades in advance.
AZCoyote on September 11, 2008 at 12:03 PM

That was almost the same meme on Kerry spouted on conserv blogs a few years ago.

Does anyone know how I could download a copy of this video
KMC1 on September 11, 2008 at 12:38 PM

I guess you missed this comment posted earlier on this thread.

alflauren on September 11, 2008 at 11:52 AM

Don’t fret none. Most here don’t read or comprehend previous comments.

Otherwise, they’d be torturers or something…..