Several weeks ago occams hatchet did a diary about an LA Time's article chronicling McCain's many mishaps as a pilot titled Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator. One part in the article that jumped out at me was the offical report blaming "a failure or malfunction of an undetermined component of the engine" when McCain crashed one of his planes. I mentioned in a comment that that was close to the excuse he used for his bombs coming lose and falling into the burning jet fuel on the U.S.S. Forrestal carrier deck which set off a chain reaction of fires and bomb explosions that killed 134 men and nearly sunk the ship, only that time it wasn't an "undetermined component" that was said to have failed, but the brackets holding the bombs under his plans wings that were given the blame.
That elicited a number of responses. It wasn't until the next day that I got the response that caused me the most confusion. A longtime poster left me a comment the following morning after I had logged out saying that McCain's plane was not the one hit by the missile, but rather the plane parked next to his. I'd been hearing for decades and reading articles found through Google for the past six months telling me that it was McCain's plane that was the one hit by the Zuni missile, so my first reaction was to ask the poster where he got that information and to post all the links I could find saying otherwise. But by the time I'd read the post later the following day, the diary had gone off the rec list where it sat all night, so I figured it must be too later to continue the conversation and let it drop. After catching up reading what was posted on Dailykos since I'd logged-off the night before, I decided to finish reading the LA Times article. It's three web pages long and I had only read the first two pages the previous night, and as luck would have it, the third page was were they said the missile struck the plane parked next to McCain's plane, the plane commanded by Lt. Cmdr. Fred White who was killed. Now you got to understand, after hearing the other version of the story for so long, that it was McCain's plane that was struck by the rocket, I thought to myself, how did the LA Times get the story wrong? Well, I found out later that the LA Times didn't get the story wrong after all. It wasn't John McCain's plane that got hit. And the one spreading the story around that McCain's plane was the one hit by a Zuni rocket for these past forty years was a one John McCain. Of course, John McCain said a lot of things about that day later to be found out not true.
I learned another shocker. Another piece of the story spread for so long that I found out was false was not that the ship's high command had to transfer McCain off the ship "for his own safety" or any other reason, but rather when the bombs started going off McCain deserted the ship without permission. He just split. The ship's command didn't even know where McCain went for 30 hours. McCain got off the ship the way he's gotten everything else in his life, by throwing his famous name around. A New York Times reporter named R.W. Apple helicoptered over, and McCain told them who he was (the son and grandson of U.S. Navy Admirals), and asked for a lift off the ship. McCain decided, as he put it in his book "Faith of My Fathers," "he needed some welcome R&R" and went to Saigon to hang in the bars and tossing back beers while his ship was burning, bombs were exploding, 134 of his fellow sailors were dying, with a similar number getting wounded.
Now fast forward forty years. We've heard a lot of thing about this incidence that we're finding out now just aren't true. We're finding out that McCain's claim of being wounded never happened. We're finding out that "the kid" McCain said died before his eyes didn't die until long after McCain deserted the ship. And now, McCain has the nerve to use this tragedy to tout his experience to handle a crisis by saying ""I’m an old Navy pilot. I know when a crisis calls for all hands on deck," which he said in explaining why he was temporarily suspending his presidential campaign and calling for postponement of the first debate between himself and Democratic candidate Barack Obama. Yes, he knows when when a crisis calls for all hands on deck, and he appears to think lending hands doesn't apply to him. Would his time in the White House be any different? If blocks long soup lines started to form all over the country, would he just say "The fundamentals of the economy are sound. You're all just a bunch of whiners!' and refuse to get involved? Do we want someone leading this country who cares about no one but themselves? I know I don't.
You can read the whole story at the link below.
http://www.truthdig.com/...