Faith of My Fathers

by John McCain

  Henry Vargo was a model midshipman. Studious, disciplined, respectful, Henry hardly ever bothered to watch the television. He had joined in its purchase only to help us out, to be one of the guys. Henry did not possess very many demerits, so the punishment he was about to receive wouldn’t pose much of a problem for him. As added compensation, we magnanimously said that Hart would have to give the television back at the end of the year and Henry could keep it.

  Smiling with satisfaction and relief, I returned to Hart’s office to reveal the culprit.

  “Midshipman McCain, First Class, sir.”

  “Well?”

  “Sir, the television set belongs to Midshipman Vargo.”

  “Midshipman Vargo!” he bellowed in disbelief.

  “Yes, sir, Midshipman Vargo.”

  Fighting to stop from smiling, I watched Hart’s face flush red with anger. Finally, he dismissed me—“Get out of here, McCain.”

  I left him and walked back to my room, much relieved to have evaded, for the last time, Hart’s wrath and his four-year quest to bring me to justice.

  A few months later I sat amid a sea of navy whites, fifth from the bottom of my class, listening to President Eisenhower confer our degrees, exhort us to noble service on behalf of the Republic, and commission me an ensign in the United States Navy.

  Eisenhower’s remarks were not particularly memorable, owing to a combination of his flat delivery and our impatience to begin celebrating our liberation. Although he wasn’t much of a speaker, we all admired the President. I remember wishing at one point during commencement that my dismal performance at the Academy had earned me an even lower place in the class standings.

  In those days, only the first one hundred graduates in the class were called to the dais to receive their diplomas from the President. Graduation was conferred on the rest of us by company. John Poindexter graduated first in our class, an honor he had well earned. He walked proudly to the podium to receive his diploma and a handshake from the President of the United States, which the President bestowed on him with a brief “Well done and congratulations.”

  The midshipman who graduates last in his class is affectionately called the anchorman. When the anchorman’s company was called, he was cheered by the whole brigade and hoisted onto the shoulders of his friends. Eisenhower motioned him up to the dais, and to the crowd’s loud approval personally handed him his diploma; both President and anchorman smiling broadly as the President patted him on the back and chatted with him for a few minutes. I thought it a fine gesture from a man who understood our traditions.

  I was proud to graduate from the Naval Academy. But at that moment, relief was the emotion I felt most keenly. I had already been accepted for flight training in Pensacola. In those days, all you had to do was pass the physical to qualify for flight training, and I was eager to embark on the life of a carefree naval aviator.

  My orders left me enough time to take an extended holiday in Europe with Jack, Frank, and another classmate, Jim Higgins. We bummed a ride to Spain on a military aircraft from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. We spent several enjoyable days in Madrid, then boarded a train for Paris. Four days after we arrived, my friends left Paris for Copenhagen and the World’s Fair. I remained behind, waiting to meet my new girlfriend, the daughter of a tobacco magnate from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We were in Paris during the summer of de Gaulle.

  At the time, France was fighting a war to hold on to its Algerian colony, and its conspicuous lack of military success had caused the collapse of the French Fourth Republic. Terrorist bombings and other unpleasantness associated with the war had driven many Parisians out of the city to seek refuge in the French countryside. We had the city to ourselves, and we enjoyed it immensely.

  Near the end of our stay, we stood in a throng of cheering Parisians along the Champs Elysées as two long, noisy lines of motorcycle policemen led the way to the Arc de Triomphe for de Gaulle’s motorcade. The general and now president of the infant Fifth Republic stood erect in the backseat of his convertible limousine nodding at the overwrought crowds as they chanted, “Algerie Française, Algerie Française.”

  Four years after returning to power, and despite his solemn promise that Algeria would be forever French, de Gaulle granted the colony’s independence. Nevertheless, he cut a hell of a figure that day, standing there so impassive and noble-looking while his nation’s adoration washed over him. I was a kid at the time, and the general’s grandeur made a great impression on me. In truth, I remain just as impressed four decades later.

  I suppose to most people who knew me at Annapolis, my entire career at the Naval Academy is aptly summarized by the anecdotes I have recorded here. Most of my reminiscences feature the frivolous escapades with which I once established my reputation as a rash and prideful nonconformist.

  In truth, I was less exceptional than I had imagined myself to be. Every class has its members who aspire to prominence by unconventional means. My father and grandfather had enjoyed only slightly less tarnished reputations at the Academy. My father, perhaps mindful of his own performance, rarely chastised me for falling well short of an exemplary midshipman’s standards. In fact, I don’t recall the subject of my record at the Academy ever being extensively discussed by either of my parents.

  There was one occasion when my father registered his disapproval over my conduct at the Academy. One evening in our second year, my roommates and I were in the middle of a water balloon fight, adding to our room’s usual disarray. We suspended our activity when someone knocked on the door. Frank opened the door to find an officer facing him with a disdainful look on his face as he appraised our room’s unacceptable condition and the four of us standing in our skivvies soaking wet. My roommates greeted our unexpected guest by briskly standing at attention. I greeted him by saying, somewhat quizzically, “Dad?”

  After an awkward second or two, he ordered, “As you were, gentlemen,” and as my roommates began to exhale, he added, “This room is in gross disorder. John, meet me downstairs in five minutes.” With that, he turned on his heels and left. I met him less than five minutes later, and he proceeded to lecture me, observing, “You’re in too much trouble here, Johnny, to be asking for any more.” That single incident is the only time I can remember my father upbraiding me for my dismal performance as a midshipman.

  My behavior was not something that particularly worried my father. I believe he assumed that, like him, I would be absorbed into the traditions of the place whether I wished to or not, and that when the time arrived for me to face a real test of character, I would not disappoint him. He had seen many an officer who enjoyed the reputation of a rake—indeed, he had been one himself—rise to the occasion in the most dire situations, and exhibit courage and resourcefulness that confounded earlier detractors. He expected no less from me.

  Even as I spent my years as a junior officer in the same profligate manner I had spent my Academy years, I cannot recall his severely rebuking me. America had fought two wars during his career, and he was certain there would soon be another one. He knew I would fight, and I think he trusted me to do my duty when my moment arrived. I don’t know if I deserved his trust, but I am proud to have had it.

  If I had ignored the less important conventions of the Academy, I was careful not to defame its more compelling traditions: the veneration of courage and resilience; the honor code that simply assumed your fidelity to its principles; the homage paid to men who had sacrificed greatly for their country; the expectation that you, too, would prove worthy of your country’s trust.

  Appearances to the contrary, it was never my intention to mock a revered culture that expected better of me. Like any other midshipman, I had wanted to prove my mettle to my contemporaries, and to the institution that figured so prominently in my family history. My idiosyncratic methods, if you can call them that, amounted to little more than imaginative expressions of the truculence I had used at other schools and in other circumstances to fend off what I had identified, o
ften wrongly, as attacks upon my dignity.

  The Academy, despite the irritating customs of plebe year and the encumbrances it placed on the individualist, was not interested in degrading my dignity. On the contrary, it had a more expansive conception of human dignity than I possessed when I arrived at its gates. The most important lesson I learned there was that to sustain my self-respect for a lifetime it would be necessary for me to have the honor of serving something greater than my self-interest.

  When I left the Academy, I was not even aware I had learned that lesson. In a later crisis, I would suffer a genuine and ruthless attack on my dignity, an attack that, unlike the affronts I had exaggerated as a boy, left me desperate and uncertain. It was then I would recall, awakened by the example of men who shared my circumstances, the lesson that the Naval Academy in its antique way had labored to impress upon me. It changed my life forever.

  CHAPTER 13

  Navy Flyer

  My early years as a naval officer were an even more colorful extension of my rowdy days at the Academy. At flight school in Pensacola, and then at advanced flight training with my pal Chuck Larson in Corpus Christi, Texas, I did not enjoy the reputation of a serious pilot or an up-and-coming junior officer.

  I liked to fly, but not much more than I liked to have a good time. In fact, I enjoyed the off-duty life of a Navy flyer more than I enjoyed the actual flying. I drove a Corvette, dated a lot, spent all my free hours at bars and beach parties, and generally misused my good health and youth.

  At Pensacola, I spent much of my off-duty time at the legendary bar Trader John’s. On Friday and Saturday nights, after happy hour at the officers’ club had ended, almost every unmarried aviator in Pensacola headed for Trader John’s. It was a vast, cavernous place that was packed shoulder to shoulder on the weekends, as was the back room where local girls, trained as exotic dancers, entertained rowdy crowds of aviators. Pensacola has since designated the place a historic landmark in recognition of its former infamy when it was the scene of some of the wildest revelry the state of Florida had ever experienced.

  After graduation from the Academy, our class was divided between those newly commissioned ensigns who intended to extend their carefree bachelorhood and those who had left the commencement ceremony to immediately enter the blessed state of matrimony. A good number of my classmates, including several of my closest friends, had married their girlfriends before taking up their first duty assignment, and this difference in our married status unfortunately created a social division between us.

  At Pensacola, married ensigns and their wives mostly socialized together. Married couples had to rent homes off base and had less disposable income than their unmarried friends. I and the other residents of the base’s bachelor officers’ quarters, with more money to waste and mindful that the amusements we sought were likely to offend the sensibilities of our married friends’ respectable young wives, kept largely to ourselves.

  Walt Ryan was one of my closest friends from the Academy, a charter member of the Bad Bunch. He, too, had been accepted into pilot training at Pensacola, but because he had married after graduation, I saw less of him than I would have preferred. His wife, Sarah, was a lovely, well-mannered girl whom I liked very much. I saw them both occasionally, and always enjoyed their company, but on most weekends I kept less civilized company.

  At some point during my time at flight school, I had begun dating a local girl whom I had met at Trader John’s. She made her living there, under the name Marie, the Flame of Florida. She was a remarkably attractive girl with a great sense of humor, and I was quite taken with her. Since her work kept her busy on Friday and Saturday nights, our dates occurred on Sunday evenings when the bar was closed.

  Most Sundays we went to the movies and had a nice dinner afterward. One Sunday, however, on our way downtown we passed Walt Ryan’s house, where I recognized the cars of several other married friends. I impulsively decided to pull over and join the party uninvited, telling Marie that I wanted to introduce her to some of my friends. Always a good sport, Marie agreed to my suggestion.

  Most of my friends’ wives were from privileged families and had been educated at distinguished Eastern schools. Marie, the Flame of Florida, had a more interesting biography, more in the “graduated from the school of hard knocks” genre. The young wives she was about to meet would be decorously attired and unfailingly genteel. Marie was dressed somewhat flamboyantly that evening, as was her custom.

  Walt and Sarah greeted our surprise visit with their usual graciousness, inviting us in without too much hesitation, offering us drinks, and introducing us to the six or so other couples gathered in their home. After the introductions and a few inane pleasantries were exchanged, the conversation seemed to become a little awkward, at times lapsing into long silences.

  Marie sensed that the young wives, while certainly not rude to her, were less than entirely at ease in her presence. So she sat silent, not wishing to impose on anyone or intrude in the conversations going on around her. After a while, she must have become a little bored. So, quietly, she reached into her purse, withdrew a switchblade, popped open the blade, and, with a look of complete indifference, began to clean her fingernails.

  My startled hosts and their guests stared at her with looks that ranged between disbelief and alarm. Marie seemed not to notice, and concentrated on her task. A short time later, recognizing that our presence had perhaps subdued the party, I thanked our hosts for their hospitality, bid good-bye to the others, and took my worldly, lovely Flame of Florida to dinner.

  I crashed a plane in Corpus Christi Bay one Saturday morning. The engine quit while I was practicing landings. Knocked unconscious when my plane hit the water, I came to as the plane settled on the bottom of the bay. I barely managed to get the canopy open and swim to the surface. After X rays and a brief examination determined I had not suffered any serious injury, I returned to the quarters Larson and I shared. I took a few painkillers and hit the sack to rest my aching back for a few hours.

  My father learned of the accident immediately and asked a friend, the admiral in charge of advanced flight training, to check on me. Chuck Larson and I had adjoining rooms in the bachelor officers’ quarters. We had moved both our beds into the same room and used the second room to entertain in. The room was, of course, in a constant state of “gross disorder.”

  When the admiral contacted by my father arrived, I was asleep and Chuck was shaving. He pounded on the door while Chuck, unaware that a distinguished visitor was at our door, shouted at him to “hold his horses.” He opened the door to our guest, snapped a salute, and stood nervously while the admiral surveyed the wreckage that was our quarters. Groggily, I thanked the admiral for his concern. Neither he nor my father needed to have bothered. I was out carousing, injured back and all, later that evening.

  I began to worry a little about my career during my deployments on several Mediterranean cruises in the early sixties. I flew A-1 Skyraiders in two different squadrons on carriers based in Norfolk, Virginia: on the USS Intrepid for two and a half cruises in the Mediterranean; and on the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise for one short and one long Mediterranean cruise.

  The A-1 was an old, propeller-driven plane; it was a very reliable aircraft and a lot of fun to fly. We would sometimes take them on twelve-hour flights that were quite enjoyable, flying low, and admiring the changes of scenery over the long distances we flew.

  The pilots in the squadrons were a close-knit group. We enjoyed flying together, as well as one another’s company while on shore leave in Europe. I found plenty of time to revel in the fun that European ports offered a young, single flyer; spending holidays on Capri, risking my wages in the casinos of Monte Carlo. However, by my second cruise on the Intrepid, I had begun to aspire to a reputation for more commendable achievements than long nights of drinking and gambling. I had started to feel a need to move on, a natural impulse for me, born of the migrant’s life I had led since birth.

  Like my grandfather
and father, I loved life at sea, and I loved flying off carriers. No other experience in my life so closely approximated the exploits of the brash, daring heroes who had captivated my schoolboy’s imagination during those long afternoons in my grandmother’s house. Ever since reading about the storied world of men at arms, I had longed for such a life. The Navy, especially with a war on, offered the quickest route to adventure if I could manage to avoid committing some career-ending mistake.

  Once, when I thought I was about to flunk out of the Academy, I had contemplated joining the French Foreign Legion. I wrote to an address in New Orleans for information about how to join the legendary force. I received a nice brochure. While reading it, I discovered that the Legion required nine years of obligated service. I decided to try to stick it out in the Navy. Now I accepted that any adventure that might come my way would almost surely be found while I wore a Navy uniform. The Navy was stuck with me, and I with it, and I decided to make the best of my circumstances.

  Remembering the satisfaction of my days on Commander Ferrell’s bridge, I volunteered for bridge watches and qualified as an “officer of the deck under way,” proving capable of commanding a carrier at sea. Already enjoying a reputation for large living as colorful as that of my legendary forebears, I began to give my superiors some reason to think I might eventually prove myself, if not as gifted an officer as my father and grandfather, perhaps competent enough not to squander my legacy.

  As I was one of the few bachelors in my squadron, I volunteered on three occasions to spend my leave attending escape and evasion school to prepare myself for the possibility of being shot down in combat. I also volunteered because I found the course to be a pretty good time.

  One course took place during a large Army exercise in Bavaria, Germany. A number of other pilots and I were released at night in the middle of the Black Forest. We wore our flight suits and were allowed only those belongings that a pilot would normally possess when he ejected during a combat mission, which amounted to a few C rations.