Roy Exum
It was in December, 1967, when two Air Force POWS watched as sadistic guards threw another, this one new and wearing a body cast, onto the floor of the cell at the atrocious “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp. “I’ve seen some dead that looked at least as good,” Bud Day remembered it vividly. This guy, decimated so badly he could not speak, weighed less than a hundred pounds. There were raw, open wounds from bayonet stabbings. His arm, broken in three places, was set at an impossible angle. Death hoovered, oh did it ever.
Major Day was almost as bad himself. He too had been left to die after escaping and was somehow holding on by a thread. Savage and constant torture, including breaking bone anew as they tried to heal, more beatings, and lack of medical care hung over him like a pall but “this new guy was something else,” Day would later recall. “We thought the guards dumped this guy on us so they can blame us for killing him, because I didn't think he was going to live out the day."
But then the legendary Day, the most decorated war hero in all of America’s fabled history, saw the new man’s eyes. “His eyes, I'll never forget, were just burning bright," and "I started to get the feeling that if we could get a little grits into him and get him cleaned up and the infection didn't get him, he was probably going to make it … and that surprised me. That just flabbergasted me because I had given him up."
The “new man” finally did die, just last Saturday, as one of the greatest Americans who has ever lived. How great? Yes, John McCain will become only the 13th Senator in history to lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda before his journey ends at the United States Naval Academy Cemetery, Annapolis, Md.
Knowing funeral services in Arizona will be held today in Phoenix, I spent several hours yesterday searching for a way I could capture the bond between McCain and the larger-than life Bud Day, who were cell mates for almost five years in the worst stretch of depravity that perhaps any American soldier has ever known. Actually the real hero in the cell was another Air Force major, Norris Overly, who had he not nursed and cared for either of his cellmates, they would have most surely died.
Bud Day is remembered as the only American to be awarded both the Medal of Honor and the Air Force Cross. When he died in 2013, McCain wept in his eulogy from the Senate floor: “Those who knew Bud after the war could see how tough he was. But, my God, to have known him in prison—confronting our enemies day-in and day-out; never, ever yielding—defying men who had the power of life and death over us; to witness him sing the national anthem in response to having a rifle pointed at his face—well, that was something to behold. Unforgettable.
“No one had more guts than Bud,” McCain said, “or greater determination to do his duty and then some—to keep faith with his country and his comrades whatever the cost. Bud was my commanding officer; but, more, he was my inspiration—as he was for all the men who were privileged to serve under him.”
And as for John McCain? What I believe is the definitive story of his life was written just this week by James H. Warner, a retired Michigan lawyer and great patriot, who once served as a domestic policy advisor in the administration of Ronald Reagan.
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THE CHURCH RIOTS – A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT
By James H. Warner, USMC Ret.
I met John McCain for the first time in the courtyard of the Hanoi Hilton, 47 years ago. I considered him a friend until his death. We frequently disagreed on political policies and tactics, but I have known few men whom I have respected as much as John McCain. My respect was based on the circumstances under which I met him.
In 1970, I was one of 57 American prisoners of war (POWs) held at a camp 25 miles northwest of Hanoi, called Son Tay. For unknown reasons in July we were moved out of that camp to another one nearby. We learned later that the U.S. government was planning a raid on Son Tay. We believed they knew we were no longer there, but the raid would wreak havoc on the morale of the North Vietnamese as well as boost our morale. Both aims were achieved, in spades.
The raid took place on Nov. 21, 1970. It so alarmed the North Vietnamese that on Nov. 24, they took POWs from all outlying camps and took us to the Hanoi Hilton, where their hold on us would be more secure. We were put in a section we had never seen before. Unlike our earlier stay, this time we were in large cells and we met POWs we hadn’t come across before. We immediately began to organize. We established communication throughout the camp and began holding classes of every kind as well as religious services.
On Jan. 1, 1971, our captors announced that we could not continue to hold these services. The rank and file immediately said that under no circumstances would we go along with this.
This resulted in growing friction between the camp authorities and the prisoners. Finally, in early March, they took away the four senior men in my cell, Room 6, and the four senior men next door, in Room 7. This was a misjudgment. After taking away the senior four men in that cell, that left Air Force colonel George E. “Bud” Day as the senior man. Bud was the most decorated warrior in American history and no shrinking violet. But even he was not the leading troublemaker in that cell. That was John McCain.
We could not make contact with the eight missing men, and this made us angry. Over the course of the month of March, we increasingly showed our anger. Finally, on the evening of March 18 men in my cell, me included, went out with the crew to wash dishes after the evening meal and acted as though we were about to start a riot. This clearly scared the hell out of the North Vietnamese.
We knew that the next provocation was likely to initiate serious retaliation. Nevertheless, at 10 the next morning, the men in Room 7 sang “Onward Christian Soldiers” at the top of their lungs. This was open defiance of camp regulations. At noon, they sang every verse of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
As written, the song contains these words: “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, with a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free…” In more recent times, the words were often changed to “let us live to make men free.” The men in Room 7 sang the original words. Hearing that, I knew that the men realized that by their open defiance, they might well be signing their own death warrants. By tapping on the wall, the men next door told us that the singing had been organized not by Bud Day, but by John McCain. To this day I cannot listen to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” or even attempt to sing it, without choking up thinking of Americans volunteering to die for their freedom to practice their religion.
That night, March 19, 1971, they took 36 of us out of our cells after dark and seated us in the courtyard. Our arms were tied behind us, our hands were tied in front of us, and we were blindfolded. The man next to me nudged me and said, “Who are you?”
“I am Jim Warner. Who are you?” He replied, “I’m John McCain.”
He went on: “In a communist country, when you defy the authorities and they take you out at night from where you live, tie you up, blindfold you, and surround you with people with guns, what happens next? Well, we know that they f— up everything they set their hands to, so when they start shooting, it will probably be okay.” He also muttered a line from the poem “Horatius at the Bridge” in Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome: “How better for man to die than in facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the altars of his gods.”
The guns did not fire that evening, and John McCain went on to a long and storied political career.
On fundamental principles, John McCain was an absolute rock. He did not give an inch. He had two broken arms and a broken leg when he was captured. No one would have faulted him had he accepted early release. He thought it was wrong, and he would not do it.
A man who believes that there are fundamental principles so important that he is willing to die for them, and to convince others to risk death to uphold those principles, is a man to be respected.
For your final voyage, John Sydney, may God grant you fair winds and following seas.
Farewell, my friend.
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James H. Warner is a retired attorney. He was a Marine officer who flew F-4s in Vietnam. Captured in 1967, he was imprisoned until 1973. He served as a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan from 1985 until 1989.
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“HE’S FOUGHT WITH EVERYBODY”
From the website, Military.com -- At his ranch in Sedona, Arizona, McCain has reportedly not been a model patient. He has jokingly accused his nurses of being in the witness protection program.
"His nurses, some of them are new, they don't really know him, so they don't understand that sarcasm is his form of affection," longtime aide Mark Salter said Monday on the "CBS This Morning" program.
"He fights, he's fought with everybody at one point or another," Salter said. "You know, he always talks about the country being 325 million opinionated, vociferous souls -- and he's one of them."
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McCAIN’S CONFESSIONS TO THE ENEMY
For all five years he was as a prisoner of war, he was tortured and beaten regularly by his Viet Cong captors. McCain eventually made an anti-U.S. propaganda "confession", according to Wikipedia. “He had always felt that his statement was dishonorable, but as he later wrote, 'I had learned what we all learned over there: every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.'
Many U.S. POWs were tortured and maltreated in order to extract 'confessions' and propaganda statements and virtually all of them eventually yielded something to their captors. McCain received two to three beatings weekly because of his continued refusal to sign additional statements.”
Hint: When he revealed his chain of command, the names were those of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive linemen. And, under extreme duress, he reluctantly admitted he was “an air pirate.”
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“I will miss Bud every day for the rest of my life, but I will see him again. I know I will.” – John McCain
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