McCain’s Life, career, have been like wild fighter jet ride

John McCain’s second bid for the White House has had the ups and downs of a wild Navy fighter jet ride.

But then, so has his entire life.

Admiral’s son. Naval aviator. Heroic prisoner of war. Tarnished lawmaker. Political maverick. GOP standard-bearer.

And the most significant chapters of McCain’s life may have yet to be written.

Now 72, John Sidney McCain III was born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone. He is the son of one distinguished Navy admiral, the grandson of another.
As a youngster, he admits in his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For,“ he chafed at rules and was a less-than-stellar student. But enrollment at the U.S. Naval Academy was all-but-preordained, given his family tradition of military service.

“My GPA earned me fifth from the bottom of my class,“ McCain recalled at a July event.
Then, as a young naval officer stationed in places like Pensacola, Fla., McCain’s image was that of a partier.

In 1965 he married Carol Shepp, a part-time swimsuit model; he also adopted her two children from her previous marriage.

After the birth of his first child, McCain was deployed to Vietnam. In July 1967, he was nearly killed in the cockpit of his jet on the carrier USS Forrestal when a missile accidentially launched from another aircraft and struck his plane. The disaster killed 134 shipmates.

In October 1967, McCain’s jet was shot down over Hanoi. Realizing McCain’s father was commander in chief of Pacific forces, the North Vietnamese sought to score propaganda points by giving McCain an early offer of release.

McCain, whose severe injuries were evident in TV images sent to the United States, refused to take release ahead of Americans at the same Hanoi prison captured before him. Ultimately, he endured 5-1/2 years of torture.

McCain returned to the United States as a hero.

After recuperating, McCain became commanding officer over the training of carrier pilots in Jacksonville. Within three years, he was assigned to the Navy’s Senate liaison office in Washington.

He first met Arizonan Cindy Lou Hensley, whose father owned one of the largest Budweiser distributorships in the country, in 1979 in Honolulu, where she was vacationing with her parents.

“By the evening’s end, I was in love,“ McCain wrote in his memoir.
McCain had already been separated from Carol, but their divorce would not be final until February 1980.

That May, he and Cindy were married.

Cindy and John have three children. They adopted another child from Bangladesh.

He Toed GOP Line In U.S. House

Even before his marriage to Cindy, McCain says he had already decided on a second career - politics.

McCain won a 1982 race for an Arizona congressional seat that opened, fighting back carpetbagger claims.

McCain became a new congressman amid the “Reagan Revolution.“

He generally toed the party line for his two terms in the House, and recalls in his writings flashing his hot temper to colleagues occasionally, something that has continued into his years as a senator.

In 1985, he was elected to the Senate seat vacated by Barry Goldwater.

McCain’s political career nearly collapsed in 1989, when he and four other senators were accused of pressuring federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, a financier, and his Lincoln Savings and Loan Association.

Each senator had received campaign contributions from Keating.

The Senate ethics committee in 1991 gave McCain a light reprimand for “poor judgment” for going to two meetings in behalf of Keating with regulators but concluded McCain was not substantively involved.

McCain has said this episode launched his determination to push for campaign finance reform.

A ‘Maverick’ Reputation

McCain has since been elected to three more Senate terms, during which he developed a wide reputation as a political “maverick,“ and an unwillingness to follow the Republican Party line on some issues.

“Look, he’s been a maverick on some issues, but not on issues that matter in people’s lives,“ counters Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Much of that reputation dates from when he launched his run for the 2000 GOP presidential nomination against George W. Bush, a favorite of the Republican establishment.

McCain upset conventional political wisdom when his self-proclaimed “Straight Talk” and cozying up to the national media met with some success. He also sparred with some conservatives, particularly those in the religious right.

But he did not win.

Afterward, McCain returned to his Senate duties amid speculation that he might be considering switching political parties.

A long scar on the left side of McCain’s face is a reminder of his personal battles during this period with melanoma, a potentially fatal form of skin cancer first diagnosed in 2000.
But his public activities continued to be a thorn in Bush’s side throughout the president’s first term, including voting against Bush’s sweeping tax-relief package in 2001.
By 2004, however, McCain was trying to mend his standing within the GOP, even campaigning on behalf of the president’s re-election.

McCain had been a vocal supporter of the Bush administration’s toppling of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s regime. But he had grown critical of how the war was continuing to be conducted after the invasion.

McCain’s call for more troops in Iraq and a continuing U.S. presence there was eventually heeded by the administration, and some began to call the troop surge “the McCain Doctrine.“

Late 2005 and early 2006 saw McCain act more like a typical Republican in other ways, including extending olive branches to the religious right.

He also voted to make permanent tax cuts to the wealthy that he once criticized.

Many within the GOP and outside of the party would come to view McCain as the early front-runner for the 2008 Republican nomination.

Despite such coronations, McCain stumbled early on in the race. But his campaign’s near-Phoenix-like resurrection saw him seize the party’s crown.

Reporter Billy House can be reached at or at 1 (202) 662-7673.