John McCain on Lessons Learned as a POW

Sen. John McCain shares life lessons and his perspective from his time as a prisoner of war. This interview took place on October 12, 2007, at Iowa Public Television.
http://www.iptv.org/campaign08
Yepsen: Senator, we've only got a couple minutes left, and I want to switch gears here to talk about you personally. You spent five and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. It's a very compelling story. I'm curious what lessons you learned during that time that would be helpful to you as president.
McCain: Oh, I think I learned that if you're ever going to succeed in life, you should have faith in God, faith in your country, and faith in your fellow individuals. And I will always look back on that as the greatest opportunity of my life to observe a thousand acts of courage and compassion and love. And the fact that I was able to be tested and, generally speaking, do well was because of the encouragement and love and example of people who still to this day are my enduring heroes, and I'm not going to let them down.
Yepsen: You had a relationship with an Iowan, Bud Day.
McCain: Toughest guy I ever knew.
Yepsen: How so?
McCain: Bud Day is the toughest man I've ever known. He has a Congressional Medal of Honor. Bud Day understands it. He knows what's right and wrong and he never gave in to the Vietnamese and he suffered severe beatings and he almost escaped. It's a story you can't make up, and I love Bud Day as much as any man I've ever known in my life.
Yepsen: So you think those lessons are going to be useful to you in the White House?
McCain: Sure. It puts everything in perspective that you need about life and about what's important and what isn't. It gives you an appreciation for every single day in this magnificent nation. Every single day I'm so grateful to God to grow up in this country.
Borg: Senator McCain, thank you.

Category:

News & Politics

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• IPTV
• IowaPublic
• Television
• IowaPress
• John
• McCain
• campaign08
• POW
• MIA
• Vietnam

[kristylvsjets]

You are a great man. There is a saying that you donot know the meaning of life until you have almost died. God bless you McCaine and thank you for being a truly real American Hero. We need more politicians like you for real.

[jkl110489]

He is a evil man. And he lies about the pow's. Thank god he lost.

[Thrashard92]

'to be successful in life you should have faith in god' ...fool