Biography
John Sidney McCain III, the second of three children born to naval officer John S. McCain Jr. and his wife, Roberta, was born on Aug. 29, 1936, at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. McCain spent his younger years moving between naval bases across the globe. He attended Episcopal High School, a private preparatory boarding school in Alexandria, Va., graduating in 1954. After graduation, he enrolled in the Naval Academy at Annapolis. When he graduated from the academy in 1958, he went on to flight school and completed his education in 1960. In 1965 he married Carol Shepp, with whom he had a daughter after adopting her two sons. After volunteering for combat duty, McCain began flying carrier-based attack planes on low-altitude bombing runs against the North Vietnamese. Although he escaped serious injury on July 29, 1967, when his A-4 Skyhawk plane was accidentally shot by a missile on board the USS Forestal, his luck ran out on Oct. 26, 1967, during his 23rd air mission. McCain's plane was shot down during a bombing run over Hanoi, and he broke both arms and one leg during the ensuing crash. After the crash, he was captured and spent 5 ½ years in various prison camps, where he was beaten and tortured. On March 14, 1973, less than two months after the Vietnamese cease-fire went into effect, McCain and many other POWs were released. McCain earned the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Distinguished Flying Cross. After nine months of rehabilitation, he returned to flying duty, but his injuries had permanently impaired his abilities to advance in the Navy, which led to his assignment as the Navy's liaison to the U.S. Senate. In 1981, after marrying his second wife, Cindy Hensley, with whom he had three children and adopted a fourth, he retired from the Navy and moved to Phoenix, Ariz., where he began establishing connections in politics. McCain easily won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 and was re-elected in 1984. As a loyal supporter of the Reagan administration, he found a place among conservative politicians. In 1986 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, and from 1987 to 1989, he underwent a potentially damaging federal investigation as a member of the Keating Five. After weathering the scandal, he went on to win re-election to the Senate three more times. In 2000 he gave George W. Bush some competition in the primaries before eventually suspending his campaign and endorsing Bush. When Bush's second presidential term began winding down, McCain officially entered the 2008 presidential race on April 25, 2007. After becoming the Republican Party's nominee, he named then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. He was defeated by Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. In 2016 he was re-elected for his sixth term representing Arizona in the Senate. During the term of President Donald Trump, McCain emerged as one of Trump's most vocal opponents in the Senate, in part due to inflammatory comments Trump had made about McCain's capture by the North Vietnamese. In 2017, it was revealed that McCain was suffering from a brain tumor, but he remained in office; among other votes in this period, McCain was the deciding vote against Republican plans to dismantle the ACA, popularly known as Obamacare. Shortly after it was announced that the senator was discontinuing treatment for his cancer, John McCain died on August 25, 2018 at the age of 81. He was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery, following a funeral service to which President Trump was pointedly not invited.
