McCain as seen from Annapolis

My history professor during Plebe (Freshman) Year at the U.S. Naval Academy had been a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War.  He often deviated from the curriculum to tell “war stories.” Pilots who missed their targets were often those afraid to fly within the range of enemy ground-to-air missiles, he told us.  There were a few seconds when you had to fly straight toward the ground with missiles going past you at relative speeds of hundreds of miles per hour.  “They looked like telephone poles flying by,” he told us. 

That was 1967, the year John McCain was shot down over Vietnam.  His story was the stuff of legend during my four years at the Academy; and, I recall, like it was yesterday, being glued to the TV, as McCain was the first to disembark from the plane that carried him home from the Hanoi Hilton.  Although on crutches, he lowered himself to kiss the ground he walked on.  It was March of 1973, a month before my twins were born. 

Twenty-somethings embark on a journey of discovery.  How does the world work?  How can I ensure I will have a roof over my head?  How do I progress in my career?  As a young military officer, these questions were accompanied by discussions of the Cold War, politics and the Vietnam War.  It was only natural to wonder how one might stand up to the kind of treatment that McCain suffered.  I confess I never thought I could.

Of course, McCain was the most famous of the P.O.W.’s because of his father’s rank and position.  His actions served as an example for military officers both in and out of captivity.  One must wonder where he developed such a strong sense of duty and honor.  His record at the Naval Academy was certainly less than stellar.  In its obituary of him, the New York Times asserts that he “resisted discipline, broke rules, piled up demerits though never enough to warrant expulsion.”  They might have been describing me in that sentence, though I would never claim to have his courage.

The market values conformity.  Job performance is measured in part on the basis of our conformance to the rules.  John McCain never did well on that measure.  His departure from norms carried over to his political life. 

A popular video on social media shows him at a campaign event in 2008.  A woman rises to confess her fear of Barack Obama because “he’s an Arab.”  Refusing to take advantage, Senator McCain disagrees and extols Obama’s character to scattered boos.  He could have expressed sympathy for her point of view.  After all, spreading fear is how candidates get elected. That he didn’t was a mark of his character.

Less well remembered, but no less important, was his departure from Republican Party orthodoxy during his failed primary campaign in 2000.  Then he described Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as “agents of intolerance.”  It’s an attitude and approach that was also reflected when he surprised his U.S. Senate colleagues by voting against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.  In his statement following the vote, he exhorted his colleagues to “stop political gamesmanship and put the health care needs of the American people first.”  Perhaps that’s why his 2008 presidential opponent, Barack Obama, said on Sunday “all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means.”

But the event I remember most was his admission of a mistake in 2000.  He had called a Confederate flag at the state capital in Columbia, SC a “symbol of heritage.”  He later confessed that he feared losing the South Carolina primary “if I had answered honestly.”  Military training, including Plebe Year at the Naval Academy, involves breaking down conditioned responses.  Of the four allowable responses by a Plebe to an upperclassman, the most resonant is “No Excuse, Sir.”  Everyone makes mistakes.  But, failing to admit one – to make excuses – is a mark of poor character.

Over the last 25 years, there has often been a call for our military heroes to run for president -- Schwarzkopf, Powell, Petraeus. What’s their appeal? The sentiment transcends party politics. People don’t care about that. Quite simply, we long for true leadership – a “No Excuse” approach to the job. Isn’t that the mark of a true leader?

McCain was labeled a maverick because he wasn’t afraid to break with his party to do or say what he thought was right.  His history tells us why.  To quote Seth Lynn, the Marine Corps veteran who heads the Veterans Campaign, an organization that prepares veterans for a second career in civic service, “Military members have… seen that the enemy is the guy at the end of the battlefield, not the guy at the other end of the aisle".

WHO WILL LEAD?