John McCain

Both his father and grandfather were four-star admirals, so it’s no surprise that John McCain was literally born on a naval base at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. Being raised at various naval bases around the globe, the six-term U.S. senator from Arizona graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1958.

He volunteered for combat duty in the Vietnam War and was spared injury when his A-4 Skyhawk jet was shot accidentally by a USS Forrestal missile in July 1967. Three months later, his plane was shot again over Hanoi.

With two broken arms and a broken leg, he was taken to prison camps and held for five and a half years because of his father’s status as a commander. There, he suffered tremendous torture as a victim of propaganda, becoming one of the most famous American prisoners of war.

“I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s,” McCain, who died of brain cancer on August 25, 2018, said during his 2008 Republican presidential nomination speech. “I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn’t my own man anymore; I was my country’s.”

by Rachel Chang