Let's not forget to give McCain proper credit for his incredible military career...

[Jackpine Radical]

especially his career as a hotshot Navy pilot. He graduated at the bottom of his Annapolis class, making it through because no Navy instructor thought it would be a good career move to flunk out the Admiral's kid. Then he used daddy's pull to get into flight school, where he was universally hailed as one of the worst pilots ever to get into a cockpit. But these distinctions were not enough. He proceeded to crack up four planes before getting shot down over North Vietnam in his fifth crash. He was the pilot responsible for an explosion aboard the USS Forrestal that killed over a hundred crewmen. That story has been whitewashed, but the truth of it is this: McCain was "hotdogging" with his plane on the flight deck. There is a thing called a "wet start" in which you pump some extra jet fuel into your engine so that when you start it, it blows out a nice, showy blast of flame & smoke. McCain did this a little too enthusiastically, and the blast from his engine set off a couple of missiles on the plane behind him, which then fired straight ahead into his plane. He managed to exit his plane on the run just before it blew up, setting off the general explosion that killed and injured hundreds of crewmembers.

[Frustratedlady]

1. How could we? We're reminded of it enough.

I believe there is much more to come out before it's all said and done.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. Not many voters know this!

[The Magistrate]

3. Interesting Detail, My Friend

Your reputation for honesty and diligence is sufficient for me, but it would be nice to have a source for the culpability of McCain in the Forrestal inferno.

[SwampG8r]

30. i have done some reading on this particular incident your honor

and everything i find is inconclusive as to what actually caused the missles to fire
they were a different type than the pilots had been using and would fire under open flame conditions but many witnesses place the planes far enough apart that a wet start alone would not have caused the misfire
also the missles did not hit mccains plane but a nearby structure
mccains plane was lit afire when his fuel tanks leaked after the initial explosion
he dropped 2 bombs on the deck and one exploded adding to the destruction
again it is inconclusive as to whether he dropped them or they were dropped by accident during the initial explosion
witnesses are on record pointing a finger at mccain for a wet start but others give the wet start no importance in the actual fires start

what i find most troubling about the forrestal fire is:
mccain was transferred to another ship while the bodies were still being stacked and counted
no investigation was made before he was shipped out
many say he left on the first helicopter load of wounded

[SwampG8r]

32. adding

he was burned in the fire so his evac may have been medical

i hate to sound like im defending mccain but i really dont think there is a there there where the forrestal is concerned

[WA98070]

4. Source please? I don't doubt you, I'd just like to see the source so I can use it too.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Source for the Forrestal story... (Thanks for keeping me honest, folks)

http://judicial-inc.biz/82jjohn_mccain_and_the_uss_forresta.htm

and here:
Did He Start The USS Forrestal Fire?

Surviving crewmen and those who investigated the Forrestal fire case reported that McCain deliberately 'wet-started' his A-4E Skyhawk to shake up the guy in the F-4 Phantom behind his A-4.


Incompetence Or A Stunt

'Wet-starts', done either deliberately (the starter motor switch allowed kerosene to pool in the engine and give a wet start) or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft. 'Wet starting' was a common practice among young 'hot-dog' pilots.


Zuni Rockets Were Volatile Design

In McCain's case, the 'wet-start' 'cooked off' and launched the M34 Zuni rocket from the rear F-4 that punctured the Skyhawk's fueltank, knocked the M-65 1000 lb bomb off it's 500 lb rated mount, and touched off the explosions and massive fire.

[SteppingRazor]

11. Um ... did you by chance click on the "source" link on that page?

Because the source in question is a quack site for the Christian Party, which refers to McCain's "trophy Jew wife" and "black daughter." :thumbsdown:

In fact, everything I've read about the investigation into the Forrestal fire says that an electrical mishap caused the Zuni rocket to discharge into McCain's plane, not a wet-start from McCain himself.

[endarkenment]

14. It can't be proven but it is a damn good theory.

http://judicial-inc.biz/82jjohn_mccain_and_the_uss_forresta.htm
http://www.blah3.com/article.php?story=20070122183950855
http://milfuegos.blogspot.com/2006/01/navy-records-on-uss-forrestal-incident.html
etc.

The facts are that McCain was a lousy pilot and an admirals son. The other fact not in doubt is that McCains plane was directly in front of the plane who's zuni missile went off and caused the disaster.

[RamboLiberal]

20. The plane that fired the rocket was across the deck and aft of

McCain's plane. Fact is there was no plane behind McCain's plane. The back of McCain's plane was facing the ocean.

Your "fact" is garbage!

[cherokeeprogressive]

26. Yours is the most accurate post on this thread.

AS a former flight deck sailor I've been answering posts like this too often recently. McHundredYearsinIraq's plane was parked TOW (tail over the water) on the port (left) side of the flight deck aft of the "waist catapults" and forward of the LSO's (Landing Signal Officer's) platform. The plane which the Zuni rocket came from was parked on the starboard side, also TOW, facing McHundredYearsinIraq's. The Zuni was activated by stray voltage.

I say these things with the confidence of one who has been there:

No plane is parked on the flight deck during a launch in such a way as to affect another plane directly with it's exhaust. It just doesn't happen. And for those who would say I couldn't know because I wasn't on the FORRESTAL when the accident happened I say BULLSHIT. The Navy does things in a standardized manner, and EVERY FLIGHT DECK OPERATES IN THE EXACT SAME WAY. In my 1 year, 8 months, and 18 days working on the flight deck, I never ONCE witnessed a wet start, accidental or done purposely. Not once. And I worked thousands of launch evolutions. In addition, I saw a training film made after the incident, "Learn or Burn" literally dozens of times. Lastly, yes, I spoke with men who were on the flight deck of the Forrestal that day. At no time was it ever mentioned that he might have been at fault. In fact, he was a minor player in the whole catastrophe.

Bottom Line: John McCain DID NOT start the Forrestal fire.

I'm a Democrat, and an Obama voter. But, I'm also a Sailor. Anyone who fosters this silly notion that McCain is responsible for the conflagration aboard the USS Forrestal denigrates my brother Sailors who lost their lives in what is a very tragic accident.

McCain's plane was parked TOW. Ask a Sailor who has worked the flight deck and he'll tell you the same thing because he's seen the films, and heard the accounts.

[Gabi Hayes]

28. thank you; yes. it's been on TV a lot, and you can see for yourself that it wasn't his fault.

I really can't stand the prick, but this sort of thing, even if true, won't matter, because the NARRATIVE states that he's a hero, no matter what facts intervene, and it'll only help him to come out with this sort of stuff.

contrast it, of course, to the free reign the M$M gave the Swiftboaters, in the face of the real heroism of Kerry

the playing field has never been more uneven, and it's only going to get worse as the fascoids get more desperate

just watch

but leave this one alone

Sampley is a very very bad person, and has hoodwinked a lot of very sad and desperate people, including the woman McCain was accused of backhanding in the Senate

[maxsolomon]

5. years as a POW erased all that.

he caused suffering, then he suffered. its all very buddhist.

[BOSSHOG]

6. Gotta disagree with you about the Forrestal Tragedy

Per "Sailors to the End" by Greg Freeman the accident was caused by a Zuni missile being launched by a Jet on the deck which hit McCain's jet across the aircraft carriers deck. The cause had to do with lax adherence to two different safety practices. The fact that very old ordnance was being used on the Jets and stored on the deck did not help matters either.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I don't know for sure. I wasn't there, but please check out my links.

I think there has been something of a whitewash of the Admiral's kid's stupid move. Not a recent whitewash, an old one, going all the way back to the official reports of the incident, which seem to be at variance with the eyewitness reports of lower-ranking personnel.

[BOSSHOG]

13. Per my reference (Page 250)

The Zuni did fire (a Zuni rocket not on McCain's jet) because a freak surge of electricity jumped through the plane's system at the moment the pilot switched from the outside electrical generator to the plane's internal power system. The voltage surged through five sequential safety devices designed to prevent just such a stray charge from reaching the rockets. The strange chain of events could not have happened without just one of the sequential causes. Some Safety procedures by some personnel were lax per the book.

Great book, but godawful sad in some parts. McCain is pictured as an arrogant ass (maverick) but not targeted as a potential cause of the accident.

As in such great calamities the whole story will probably never be told.

[grantcart]

18. I believe that if you dig further you will find many websites that examine the

Forestal incident in depth by neutral parties and conclude that he was not responsible for that one.

Because it was one of the worst accidents of its kind it is still used in training today.

You can even see him jumping from his plane and barely making it out of the flames in the various youtube links.

The rest of your claims seem to be well established and actually there was more disciplinary problems when he returned from POW status and then carried on a number of disruptive affairs and had to be continually re-assigned.

[izquierdista]

9. I want to know

Who were the four who were lower in class ranking than McCain? Stoners? Drunks? Other inbred legacies?

There should be an island where people with connections, but no smarts can be sent. Maybe some tropical paradise where they could drink all day and party all night, but at least stay the fuck away from the levers of power. Kind of like a leper colony, except the condition would be congenital stupidity. They could name it "Isla Dubya" in honor of the person who made its establishment necessary.

[indepat]

10. Jackpine Radical, we can take comfort that the MSM will hop on this story and give it the

coverage necessary for the public to get a foretaste of the recklessness of the man who would be king and keeper of the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. :D

[Bucky]

12. Flying an airplane doesn't mean "can run a government". Crashing doesn't means "can't run one."

Getting captured and interrogated and tortured by the Viet Cong doesn't mean "can run the government." Enduring that torture doesn't mean "secretly crazy like a Manchurian candidate," nor does giving up information under torture offer mean one can't run the country. Being 71 or being black or being a woman doesn't either add or subtract from the ability to formulate sound policies and implement them for the public good.

[Arkansas Granny]

15. I have become very skeptical of stories like this after seeing what the

swiftboaters did to John Kerry. I don't think we need to use anything related to McCain's military career against him. There are enough provable facts about his record that can be used to show that he is unsuitable for the office of President.

[ashling]

16. This is clearly within bounds as McCain put it in HIS ad

but I think you had better look closely at your source. If we are going to question this it had better be more than a grainy hit piece. Your source is a right wing fundy group that equates Jewish = Zionist = Communist = .... well, you get the picture.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. I didn't dig deeply enough into that source; actually,

I couldn't remember where I originally read the story & Googled this stuff when I was challenged for a source.

Kinda embarrassing--not the sort of site I like to give any needless exposure to.

[DinahMoeHum]

17. A fellow POW explains why he will NOT vote for McCain. . .

Link:
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,164859,00.html

(snip)
John McCain served his time as a POW with great courage, loyalty and tenacity. More that 600 of us did the same. After our repatriation a census showed that 95% of us had been tortured at least once. The Vietnamese were quite democratic about it. There were many heroes in North Vietnam. I saw heroism every day there. And we motivated each other to endure and succeed far beyond what any of us thought we had in ourselves. Succeeding as a POW is a group sport, not an individual one. We all supported and encouraged each other to survive and succeed. John knows that. He was not an individual POW hero. He was a POW who surmounted the odds with the help of many comrades, as all of us did.

I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.
(snip)

:think:

[Cha]

22. We know how the gop and the m$$$m made an AWOL overgrown

fratboy into a future president(sic) of all of us so how do you think they're going to market a gop prisoner of war even if he doesn't work on weekends?

[GalleryGod]

21. Roger that.

He's an asswipe of the highest order.
Going to crush his smarmy ass like Dole.

[styersc]

23. Every man or woman who voluntarily goes into "harm's way" on

my behalf is a hero. I have a family and appreciate the sacrifice.

If you want to lose an election real fast, explain your theory to the electorate, many of whom have made that decision, or who have family who have made the call.

[Binka]

25. Sorry No I Am From A Long Time Military Family And We All Loathe McLame

My father is a retired Admiral a few years ahead of Lame-O, my uncle is a retired Capt and McLames classmate and to this day he hates that fucker with a white hot passion, my ex is a former F-14 jock and Top Gun instructor, my son is a retired Marine wounded badly in Iraq. We all HATE McLame. Not all military folks love the loser McLame. Just sayin'. You are painting with a broad brush. Lots of military people I am still in contact with think McLame is an ASSHOLE.

[Yavin4]

24. McCain Is a Hypocrite

In 2004, as Bush and Rove's operatives savaged Kerry's military record, McCain said little and did little to stop the slurs and stand up for a fellow vet.

[totodeinhere]

27. Both Senators Obama and Clinton have said that they honor his military service.

I agree with them. I wish we could stick to criticizing McCain on the issues, and there are plenty of reasons to criticize him for that. But let's not go after his military service. It's not necessary and that strategy may well backfire with a lot of voters.

[beachmom]

29. I think it is wrong to go after McCain's service.

[julios]

31. Fortunate son

Enlightening article, cool site:

http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine06132008.html