John McCain passed away on Saturday, August 25, 2018 at 4:28 PM. He was 81 years old. His wife Cindy and family were by his side.
He died of gioblastoma which is an aggressive form of brain cancer. He had ended his treatments earlier this month with an official statement from his family released on Friday, August 24 saying, “The progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict.
Soon after his death on Saturday Cindy McCain tweeted, “My heart is broken. I am so lucky to have lived the adventure of loving this incredible man for 38 years. He passed the way he lived, on his own terms, surrounded by the people he loved, in the place he loved best.”
McCain was born on August 29, 1936, growing up with a Christian faith in the Episcopal church. After graduating from the United States Naval Academy in 1958 he became a naval aviator, flying numerous missions during the Vietnam war. While flying a bombing mission in October 1967 he was shot down and captured by the communist North Vietnamese forces. He was held as a prisoner of war in the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ for five years and a half years undergoing brutal beatings and torture. But by his resolve he endured. He was released in 1973 having sustained physical disabilities from his time as a prisoner of war. After retiring from the Navy in 1981 as a captain and moving to Arizona, he entered politics.
McCain was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1982, and was re-elected in 1984. Then in 1987 he won the US Senate race in 1987 and was re-elected five times. However, he ran for the Republican nomination for President in 2000, but lost to Texas Governor George W. Bush who then became the US President. But in 2008 he won the Republican nomination but lost the presidential race to Democrat, Barack Obama.
In a memoir released this last May he said, “It’s been quite a ride. I’ve known great passions, seen amazing wonders, fought in a war, and helped make peace,” McCain wrote. “I’ve lived very well and I’ve been deprived of all comforts. I’ve been as lonely as a person can be and I’ve enjoyed the company of heroes. I’ve suffered the deepest despair and experienced the highest exultation…I made a small place for myself in the story of America and the history of my times.”
Author Stephen Mansfield said McCain saw himself as a Christian but had “a distrust of the religious right and a faith that is too public, too political.” However, in a 2008 televised interview with megachurch pastor Rick Warren, McCain recalled a guard in his prisoner of war camp in Vietnam who shared his faith one Christmas.
“He stood there for a minute, and with his sandal on the dirt in the courtyard, he drew a cross and he stood there. And a minute later, he rubbed it out, and walked away. For a minute there, there were just two Christians worshipping together.”
Asked by Pastor Warren what being a Christian means, McCain simply replied: “It means I’m saved and forgiven.”
This article was written by Jared Laskey
