'Yet we still let everybody look at it.'

Well.

Being of the Yankee Air Pirate Neanderthal throw-back that I am, I can’t see a contest between Obama and McCain. Even though there is one, there shouldn’t be. This is why I think so:

My peers and I were “raised,” so to speak, by men who had only recently returned to full duty after being released from the North Vietnamese military Gulag. Some I met as a senior at the USAF Academy in 1975-76, some as a newly-minted instructor pilot on his first post-pilot training assignment, and a couple as a rookie Hog driver.

None of them were “normal” in the strictest sense of the word.

I mean that in a good way.

None called attention to their past, but we all knew who they were and we watched them.

As a man, it’s hard to look at another man who you know for a fact has been through tougher times than you (by about a factor of a billion) and not think, “Could I have been as brave as him? Could I have been one-one hundredth of a stud that guy was?” In short, in matters of character, courage, perseverance, loyalty and patriotism, this particular Band of Brothers—of whom no blockbuster movies have been made—know no peer in my eyes.

I got a sense of who these guys were almost a year before I was commissioned.

I was on the Cadet Honor Committee, back then the cadre that oversaw the application of the Honor Code. Our officer in charge was a Major who spent more than 6 years in jail up North. He had an easy smile and approachable demeanor. Even though you were a cadet toad, this guy never made you feel like it. So one day a half-dozen or so of us were sitting in his office and, knowing his background, someone asked, “What was your worst day?”

“Well, I guess it was the day I thought I had been paralyzed from the neck down.”

(Whoa…)

“We were in a group, sitting outside under a bright moon, watching a pretty silly propaganda film depicting US troops as bloodthirsty murderers…really poorly made and laughable in its caricature of the American soldier…when one of the English speaking guards walks by and asks how I liked the film.

“What he didn’t know was that we had discovered that US astronauts had landed on the moon in ’69. He knew that America had put a man on the moon, but he didn’t know that we knew.”

At this point, we asked how the news had gotten out.

“They fell down on the job in ransacking our CARE packages…a sugar packet with a drawing of Neil Armstrong standing on the moon next to the American flag and the date of the landing was somehow overlooked. The news spread through the camp like wildfire.”

“OK…so what’s that got to do with the propaganda film?”

“Well, I thought I’d have a little fun at this guy’s expense. Turned out to be a bad move.

“When he asked me how I felt about my government now, I said, ‘Eh, I don’t know. Actually, I think America is a pretty great country.’ Surprised (he was sure the film was gospel vis-à-vis the US), he asked why and I said, ‘Well, we landed on the moon didn’t we?’

Too shocked to lie when he realized we knew that fact, he sputtered, ‘Yes.’

‘So that means we own it, right?’ (You could hear the wheels turning…)

‘Er, yes.’

‘Yet we still let everybody look at it.’

“It took about a three-count before he realized he’d been made a fool of, but that’s all I remember until I woke up.”

This guy was beaten so badly he lost consciousness for God knows how long…and here’s the “worst day” part:

“When I started to come around, after a few seconds, I found I couldn’t move my head. I thought, ‘Oh, s**t, they broke my neck.’

“That was the worst day of my captivity.

“As soon as that thought formed in my head, I panicked and, still in that grey world between being out and being conscious, my body reflexively convulsed. It was then I could move my head.”

Why the momentary “paralysis?” The beating he received for embarrassing the guard left him bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The blood flowed down his face and neck as he lay unconscious on his cell’s floor, gluing his head to the concrete as it dried and coagulated. Still groggy when coming around, his momentary immobility felt like paralysis.

As horrible as this tale was, I swear he had a twinkle in his eye when he told it, probably because he enjoyed remembering the look on the guard’s face when he realized he’d been snookered, big time.

Now, you’d never know this guy, and hundreds like him, was a hero. As far as I know, he’s never written an autobiography. However, he did get to know physical and mental pain, he got to know what it’s like to lose his freedom, he got to know what it’s like to be hungry, cold, dirty and alone surrounded by men who had the power of life and death over him. He got to learn how to resist tyrants and sadists. He got to know what “friend” really means. He developed and appreciation for America I’ll bet he didn’t have before he found himself in the Hanoi Hilton. He also learned what it’s like to be broken. And he learned how to come back from that. He knew before he launched that bad men and bad regimes need to be fought. After he got out, he had first-hand knowledge why.

When I hear McCain’s opponents trying to downplay his POW time, saying it’s no basis on which to select a President, I cannot agree. I disagree particularly in this case where his rival for the Presidency is so devoid of any meaningful experience (and I’m NOT talking “executive”) that builds the kind of character it will take to lead the free world in the next several years.

Being a good speaker is nice, and I’ll be the first to admit McCain is no Obama on that score, but I want someone with character and courage in that seat. Alas, it doesn’t count for much these days and that’s a damn shame.

Obama is an impressive guy. He's not an idiot and he has great potential. Hell, he took on the Clinton Machine and beat them. 

But I look at him and see...a kid. 

When I look at McCain, I don't see a kid...and I ain't talkin' age here. I see a grizzled old bulldog who's forgotten more than Obama presently knows. I see a energetic manly man who's had the s**t kicked out of him, literally and figuratively, and has, without fail, gotten back up and into the ring. I see a guy who has convictions and the courage to defend them against tenacious opposition. Before the game starts, guys like that you hope pick you for their team. And another thing...

Based on what I’ve seen in my life as a combat pilot, a commander and a citizen, I want someone who’s had a lot of the hubris burned out of him in the fires of the Forrestal and the Hanoi Hilton. Hubris is bad in a man with his finger on the button and right now, despite the post-Palin speech shock, I think there’s still a helluva lot in Barack Obama.

When I see how much awe and adulation is showered on the Dem candidate…and how little is afforded McCain…I realized my values are definitely out of sync with many on the left and the right.

Sure, McCain ain’t perfect, but the challenges he’s met, the shrewd calls he’s made in the face of fierce opposition, the patience, the agility and the tenacity he’s displayed lend me to believe that we could have done worse…and given his opponent, substantially worse.