John Sidney McCain III … 1936-2018: Updated
On the last page of the last book written by John McCain, published just three months before he died, he wrote of what was about to be.
“ ‘The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it,’ spoke my hero, Robert Jordan, in [Ernest Hemingway’s] ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’ And I do, too. I hate to leave it. But I don’t have a complaint. Not one. It’s been quite a ride. I’ve known great passions, seen amazing wonders, fought in a war, and helped make a peace. 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.” –U.S. Senator John McCain, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations (published May 2018)
Funeral arrangements are in place for the Vietnam prisoner of war who survived more than five years of harrowing experiences at the hands of the North Vietnamese and whose arms were permanently damaged from multiple breaks during tortuous beatings. He was never able to raise them above his head after the Hanoi Hilton years but it didn’t stop him from public service.
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama will deliver eulogies. President Bush was his opponent during the 2000 presidential election. President Obama was his opponent during the 2008 presidential election. One is Republican, the other is a Democrat. That he chose them speaks volumes.
He will lie in state in the Arizona capitol building, in the state he represented, on Wednesday.
He will be honored Thursday at a memorial service at the National Phoenix Baptist Church with a tribute from former Vice President Joe Biden. The service will be livestreamed.
He will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda on Friday, an honor granted only twelve previous U.S. senators, in the building where he served for 35 years.
He will receive a full dress funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral on Saturday. The service will be livestreamed.
He will be buried at the Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland on Sunday. McCain served for two decades in the Navy following his father and grandfather.
He asked that current Republican President Donald Trump not attend his funeral but reportedly Vice President Mike Pence will be there.
He now joins his father and grandfather, both Navy admirals, who are honored with the named guided missile destroyer John S. McCain, an honor the Navy extended to include the Navy hero and Vietnam War veteran.
He was honored by Congress when the annual spending bill in 2018 was named for him, a nod to his years as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
CNN wrote:
McCain felt until the end of his life that Trump represents a historical anomaly and a diversion from America’s traditional leadership. He maintained that core American values would reassert themselves.
“Increasingly, we have our own facts to reinforce our convictions and any empirical evidence that disputes them is branded as ‘fake,'” McCain wrote in his in his just-published book “The Restless Wave.”
Cover photo: Captain John McCain on his release as a prisoner of war (U.S. Navy photo)
Update x1: More details have been released about John McCain’s funeral to be held Saturday at the National Cathedral in D.C.
Pallbearers:
Actor Warren Beatty
Former Vice President Joe Biden
Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen
Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI)
Former Sen. Gary Hart (D-CO)
Former Gov. Tom Ridge (R-PA)
Former McCain Chief of Staff Mark Salter
Former McCain presidential campaign manager Richard Davis
FedEx founder and president Fred Smith
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Vice President of anti-Putin group, Open Russia, Vladimir Kara-Murza
Fundraiser Carla Eudy
Businessman Stephen Dart
Speakers:
Former President George W. Bush (R)
Former President Barack Obama (D)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT)
Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
