In an open letter to John McCain, an Iraq vet questions the Senator’s military record—and says he failed the country on torture. Christopher Brownfield, a graduate of the Naval Academy gives the best and saddest reasons for ditching the un-honorable Senator McCain.
Former hero should not be president
Dear Senator McCain,
From my earliest days at the Naval Academy, I wanted you to become president. Despite the 40 years that separated us, I felt as if I knew you.
Maybe it was the adventurous chronicles of your naval exploits or our timeless sense of pride in service to country. Then again, maybe it was just my roommate, who bore an uncanny resemblance to you. John also wanted to be an aviator.
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Like you, my John was a maverick who got into trouble, kept his hair too long for the academy’s comfort, and spotted free beer like a well-tuned radar gun. My John was an honorable man whose grades ranked fifth from the bottom—exactly like you. But strangely, while you graduated, landing a competitive spot in flight school, my John was jettisoned for “mediocrity.” My John was denied the thrill of shaking President Bush’s hand, barred from naval service, and slapped with a retroactive tuition bill for his marginal performance.
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McCain would have been kicked out of the Naval Academy if he was any other offspring because of excess demerits, but his Mother intervened and he was relieved of demerits and allowed to graduate. If his Father and Grandfather were not Admirals, McCain would have been long gone from the Academy.
I’ve never crashed an airplane, but my submarine crashed in an embarrassing accident that resulted in the summary firing of our chain of command. But according to published accounts, you had already crashed three airplanes under your solo control by the time you were my age—two after “engine trouble” and another after snagging power lines during a low-flying stunt. My captain and commodore took nosedives for their water-landing, but somehow you, the yacht club commodore, remained upwardly mobile, unscathed by what the Navy characterized as “routine ejection.”
Anyone who knows anyone in the Navy will attest to the unbelievably lenient way McCain was treated throughout his Naval career. Some say that the only reason that McCain ever went into politics is that he never would have made Admiral, something his Father and Grandfather were very proud to be.
I was stationed in Baghdad when you shopped its market, sans helmet, pretending that all was well—it was a reckless and selfish stunt that endangered American soldiers. At a dinner with Senator Graham the following week, I made a point of wearing full body-armor. The dinner was a meeting of senior public affairs officers—the soap of the Baghdad spin cycle. Your closest ally in the Senate explained that America would benefit, politically, if Iraqi courts convicted some terrorists. Graham then called for show trials that would justify holding America’s prisoners indefinitely. Between your pre-emptive pardon to the architects of torture and Graham’s off-camera filibuster on due process, America’s moral authority vanished like Osama bin Laden.
I know that politics is a blood sport, senator, but your strong survival instinct needs to evolve. After September 11, 2001, much more was at stake in the international arena than your presidential dream. While terrorism is real, our paranoid, legalistic response has only endangered America more—an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And just as your experiences in Vietnam made you an unlikely hero, America’s corrupt, inhumane, and often homicidal treatment of human beings who have yet to see their day in court has undoubtedly dignified the cause of real terrorists. In this way, your self-promoting, sanctimonious, and resoundingly mediocre compromise pushed those who hate America to shout in defiance, rallied insurgents in condemnation of our injustice, and handed extremists a pure, unfiltered reason to continue their jihad.
America deserves better than this.
As a Naval Academy graduate who made the grade, an Iraq veteran who risked his life, and an officer who swore “to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” my concerns have earned their day in court.
Now, if you please, Senator McCain, in the spirit of habeas corpus, show me the body.