Being a maverick almost stopped John McCain from becoming a public servant

Retropod

The Washington Post

History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.5 • 670 Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2018

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the Naval Academy, McCain was in a group called the “Bad Bunch” as he rebelled against his father’s expectations.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.
0:05.6	I've had the good fortune to spend 60 years in service to this wondrous land. It's not been
0:11.6	perfect service, to be sure. And there were probably times when the country might have benefited
0:16.9	a little less of my help. But I've tried to deserve the privilege as best I can. And I've been
0:24.6	repaid a thousand times over with adventures, with good company, with the satisfaction of serving
0:32.1	something more important than myself, of being a bit player in the extraordinary story of America.
0:40.4	And I am so grateful.
0:43.0	That was Senator John McCain, who passed away in 2018 after a battle with a vicious
0:49.4	and deadly form of brain cancer.
0:52.5	McCain was known as the Maverick in the Senate for his willingness to defy his own party when
0:57.0	it went against his principles.
0:59.0	And more recently, of course, for his willingness to defy his party's president, a man who mocked
1:05.0	McCain for being captured in Vietnam, even though he successfully avoided the draft.
1:14.7	You've probably heard some stories of McCain's ordeal as a prisoner of war,
1:21.2	five years of brutal torture that left him both physically and mentally scarred for life.
1:24.7	He took the beatings, never wavering.
1:27.9	But years before his Maverick led him to serve as a stalwart of the Senate
1:30.4	or an example to his fellow prisoners in Vietnam,
1:34.1	it almost led him on a path to not serve his country at all.
1:42.5	McCain came from a long line of naval officers.
1:46.0	His grandfather had served in the Navy during World War II
1:48.8	and was posthumously awarded the rank of admiral.
	...

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