A legend passes on

I said these words on FB shortly before John McCain passed on. I meant every word.

An American hero is apparently going to depart us in awhile. Senator John McCain, a Naval Academy graduate who was shot down over North Vietnam and spent years in the Hanoi Hilton being beaten and tortured to the extent that he can't lift his arms above his shoulders even now. He later famously forgave his captors, which undoubtedly freed his soul. He was offered to be sent home early in his incarceration because his father was an admiral but he refused because he wasn't next on the seniority list of POWs, opting to stay with his men. This is true loyalty, displayed in the true American way (McCain embodies American greatness which has never gone anywhere, despite trite and mindless slogans). 

Later he became a U.S. Senator from AZ where he served with honor and distinction, despite some political miscalculations (he always admitted his actions were never perfect and he made mistakes, a refreshing political attribute). He mentored newer senators, both Democratic and Republican, worked on campaign finance reform before the despicable Citizens United USSC opinion unleashed a deluge of corrupting dark money upon the U.S. political system. 

Before this year, he's the only Republican I have voted for in this century, in 2000, because the Grand Old Party is now a stifled, merely self-aggrandizing and mostly corrupted party otherwise. Famously McCain defended Barack Obama as an honorable, loyal American citizen to mindless, misguided supporters of his even as he ran against Obama's candidacy in 2008. 

Check out his concession speech after that election, a healing, uniting bit of elocution that I have always thought was under appreciated. I'm glad John is still with us and when he departs I will mourn his passing.