McCain's pledge of allegiance

Old 10-27-2008, 06:50 PM
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fla1976
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John McCain's remarks about the pledge of Allegiance!

In light of the recent appeals court ruling in California , with respect to the Pledge of Allegiance, the following recollection from Senator John McCain is very appropriate:

"The Pledge of Allegiance" - by Senator John McCain

As you may know, I spent five and one half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the NVA kept us in solitary confinement, or two or three to a cell. In 1971 the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.

This was, as you can imagine, a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs 10,000 miles from home.

One of the men who moved into my room was a young man named Mike Christian.

Mike came from a small town near Selma , Alabama . He didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old. At 17, he enlisted in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training School . Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the opportunities this country and our military provide for people who want to work and want to succeed.

As part Of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to receive packages from home. In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items of clothing.

Mike got himself a bamboo needle. Over a period of a couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed on the inside of his shirt.

Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup, we would hang Mike's shirt on the wall of the cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know the Pledge of Allegiance may not seem the most important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it was indeed the most important and meaningful event.

One day the Vietnamese searched our cell, as they did periodically, and discovered Mike's shirt with the flag sewn inside, and removed it.

That evening they returned, opened the door of the cell, and for the benefit of all of us, beat Mike Christian severely for the next couple of hours. Then, they opened the door of the cell and threw him in. We cleaned him up as well as we could.> > The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the middle on which we slept. Four naked light bulbs hung in each corner of the room.

As I said, we tried to clean up Mike as well as we could. After the excitement died down, I looked in the corner of the room, and sitting there beneath that dim light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was my friend, Mike Christian. He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from the beating he had received, making another American flag. He was not making the flag because it made Mike Christian feel better. He was making that flag because he knew how important it was to us to be able to Pledge our allegiance to our flag and country.

So the next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you must never forget the sacrifice and courage that thousands of Americans have made to build our nation and promote freedom around the world.

You must remember our duty, our honor, and our country

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

PASS THIS ON... And on... And on! You can even send it back to me, I don't mind, because it?s worth reading again
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Old 10-27-2008, 07:50 PM
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.......wow............I am so humbled by these folks..........and so honored to believe in the same country they do.........
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Old 10-28-2008, 04:22 AM
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speachless.
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Old 10-28-2008, 05:53 AM
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Thanks for posting this fla1976! I am really at a loss for words.
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Old 10-28-2008, 02:13 PM
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I personally feel that not enough people know enough about the man and his convictions. The following is a letter from someone that knows Bud Day. Bud Day is the most decorated soldier since General MacArthur. He was also a prisoner with John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton. You can do a Wikipedia search on him to get his story. I am a registered Democrat, but I believe in voting for the best man or woman and the hell with party politics. The letter is as follows:

It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that Doris Day. The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.


As we ate near the Days' home in Florida recently, I heard things about Sen. McCain that was deeply moving and politically troubling. Moving because they told me things about him the American people need to know. In addition, troubling because it is clear that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history. When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions.

They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal. Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear.



It involves what happened to Bud Day after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war.. When recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple." The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle”, as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.



However, it did not heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.



Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatment he had gotten from his captors.

Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.



Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr McCain serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administer religious services to the other prisoners.



Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's sermons. "He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says", and sounded like a bona fide preacher”. One of Mr. McCain's first sermons took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners should not ask God to free them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. Caesar put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.



Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain could not raise his arms over his head. One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end of his watch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly after, on Christmas Day, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and drew a cross in the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain later said that when he returned to Vietnam for the first time after the war, the only person he really wanted to meet was that guard.



Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill.. Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda victory of the son and grandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. "He wasn't corruptible then, Mr. Day says, "and he's not corruptible today."



The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime valor. For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about. Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.



I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris , is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife. "We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullet remembers, and "five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.



A few, but not many, of the stories told to me by the Days have been written about, such as in Robert Timberg's 1996 book "A Nightingale's Song. Nevertheless, Mr. McCain rarely refers to them on the campaign trail. There is something admirable in his reticence, but he needs to overcome it.



Private people like Mr. McCain are rare in politics for a reason. Candidates who are uncomfortable sharing their interior lives limit their appeal. However, if Mr. McCain is to win the election this fall, he has to open up. Americans need to know about his vision for the nation's future, especially his policy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to learn about the moments in his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain cannot make this a biography-only campaign - but he cannot afford to make it a biography-free campaign either. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never know the experiences of his life that show his character, integrity, and essential decency. These qualities mattered in America 's first president and will matter as Americans decide on their 44th president.
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Old 10-28-2008, 11:38 PM
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ive always considered myself pretty tough but while i was reading that i could feel the tears trying to gather up.god bless our boys (and girls) who have given so much of themselves for our country. we OWE them people more than we could ever repay.
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Old 10-29-2008, 04:21 AM
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Tod74
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look at the difference in him and John Kerry in the last election...He has a lot to be proud of that he rarely mentions.........then you have John Kerry(sp) who,according to some, exagerated the things he did while in service.
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Old 10-29-2008, 06:36 AM
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The true hero never brags of his/her actions. Be very wary of those who do. We call them 'PX heros'. The real combat veteran can spot a PX hero a mile away......Kerry is as phony as they come.
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Old 10-29-2008, 03:28 PM
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Now that is truley AMERICAN.... AWESOME. Obama is SOOOO different!! If it happend to him, he would have DIED. If he didn't, he would BRAG about it & would have tried to SUE the military when he got bacik for racial discrimination... only after he would have sold out military secrets first. DAMN I DESPISE that fool.
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Old 11-12-2008, 10:33 AM
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TTT :!:
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