John McCain

  b. 1936 | American politician

At The Bottom

— 1968

He remained in horrific physical condition for weeks, with unattended broken limbs and a case of dysentery that nearly killed him.

At the age of 31, John McCain found himself a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.  A naval aviator, McCain had been shot down over the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi in October 1967.  He managed to eject himself from the plane before it crashed, but he was badly injured and nearly drowned when he came to rest in Truch Bach Lake.  After being beaten by civilians who dragged him from the lake, McCain was transported to Hoa Lo Prison, where North Vietnamese doctors told him that it was “too late” to save him.  He remained in horrific physical condition for weeks, with unattended broken limbs and a case of dysentery that nearly killed him. (He eventually received medical treatment when his captors learned that McCain’s father was a high-ranking Navy officer.)  McCain, like other American prisoners, was kept in solitary confinement at the prison.  The food was nearly inedible, and McCain lost 50 pounds within a few months.  By August 1968, North Vietnamese interrogators began torturing him on a daily basis, demanding that he confess his “crimes” against the Vietnamese people.  Eventually, at what he later described as the lowest point of his life, McCain reached his breaking point and signed a “confession,” excerpts of which were later read on Radio Hanoi.