(1936-2018)
Who Was John McCain?
The son of a decorated Navy admiral, John McCain enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy and was dispatched to Vietnam, where he was tortured as a prisoner of war between 1967 and 1973. After his release, McCain served as a Republican congressman and senator from the state of Arizona, earning renown as a "maverick" who challenged party orthodoxy. He launched a bid for the U.S. presidency in 1999 and earned the Republican nomination in 2008, before losing to Barack Obama. After winning a sixth Senate term in 2016, McCain made headlines for his opposition to Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare and his battle with brain cancer. A day after deciding to stop treatment for his cancer, McCain died at his home in Sedona on August 25, 2018.
Navy Blood
John Sidney McCain III was born on August 29, 1936, at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone (then a U.S. territory), the second of three children born to naval officer John S. McCain Jr. and his wife, Roberta. Both McCain's father and paternal grandfather, John S. McCain Sr., were four-star admirals, with John Jr. rising to command U.S. naval forces in the Pacific.
McCain spent his childhood and adolescent years moving between naval bases in America and abroad