Sunday, 19 October 2008
Faith of our Fathers
By
BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
One day
in late summer 1970, I was playing tennis on the courts next to the
Officer’s
Club at Pearl Harbor. I was 16. My
opponent, a
long-haired boy whose name I now forget, was younger. He was a visitor
from the
mainland, the little brother of the wife of a junior officer on my
Dad’s ship.
Suddenly, a gnarly bantam rooster of a man rushed onto
our court
through one of the gates, followed by an entourage of followers who
could only
be senior naval officers, despite the fact that all were in white
shorts,
conspicuously devoid of insignia.
Without pausing in his stride, the first man commanded,
“You boys
get out of here! I’ve got this court.” Taken aback, we nevertheless
immediately moved to obey.
I knew
active-duty
officers had precedence over dependents on Navy courts, and although
this man
looked old for active duty — at 59, he seemed ancient — we could not
doubt his
authority. As we moved to
collect
our gear, he noticed my father — at that time the executive officer of USS Kawishiwi
— sitting on the bench where he had been watching us play. The man went
immediately to Dad and spoke to him briefly, then came quickly over to
us boys.
I was unprepared for what came next — an apology.
Introducing himself, he explained that he was extremely
busy,
that he reserved the court for this time and that it was the only
recreation he
had, so he had been in a hurry to get to it, which explained but did
not excuse
his brusqueness, and he hoped we would understand.
No
problem, admiral, I said. Don’t mind us. We’re moving. Enjoy your game.
The
man was John
S. McCain
Jr.
Had he been in uniform, he would have worn four stars — the same rank
his
father had attained in World War II. He was CINCPAC
— the
Commander In Chief Pacific Command — a title that to a Navy brat
had the
same ring as the words “the king” would have had to someone in Medieval
Europe.
Except that no king of old ever had authority over as much military
power. He
commanded all U.S.
forces in
and around the Pacific and Indian
Oceans, from the U.S.
west coast to the Persian Gulf. The
American
forces fighting the war in Vietnam
were only a portion of his responsibility.
Among the
hundreds of
thousands of men under his command was a lieutenant commander being
held as a
prisoner of war in Hanoi.
The naval aviator was nearing his third anniversary in captivity, most of that time in solitary confinement
in a tiny,
stifling cell, his monotony
relieved
only by brutal interrogations. His body, and at one point even his
spirit,
broken, he would be there for another two-and-a-half years.
I
didn’t know any of that at the time. Only years after
Sen. John McCain had risen
to national prominence did I
connect him to the admiral I’d met that day. But even among
the many who knew about the connection, few ever heard CINCPAC speak of
it.
Only those closest to him knew about the ritual with which he would
mark each
Christmas: Every year, he would go to Vietnam and visit troops
stationed
closest to the DMZ. At some point he would go off by himself to the
edge of the
base and stare silently northward, in the direction of his son.
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