Faith of my Fathers
 John McCain with Mark Salter
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1999 Random House NY USA
  ISBN: 0375501916


John McCain learned about life & honor from his grandfather & father, both 4-star admirals in the U.S.Navy. This is a memoir about their lives, their quiet heroism & the ways sons are shaped & enriched by their fathers. It is also the memoir of John McCain III who, as a downed naval aviator during the Viet Nam War, faced the most difficult challenge of his life & survived with the help of his faith & brother Prisoners of War.

This is a forthright, no-nonsense remembering of the lives of his grandfather, father & his own until his release at the ending of the war in Viet Nam. In his preface John McCain quotes Viktor Frankl, an Auschwitz survivor: “Everything can be taken from man but one thing; the last of human freedoms - to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” In Faith of my Fathers John McCain with Mark Salter has given us a thorough & invigorating look into the makings of an American son complete with the “ten foot tall & bullet proof” attitude of a young man, sure of his heritage to the broken, lean & clean human incarcerated in hovels into which we wouldn't put pigs.

Interspersed with memories, stories & philosophies, Senator John McCain III offers us detailed descriptions of military politics & engagements & the blow-by-blow of life as a POW among a people with a particularly advanced case of paranoia & brutality.

In his late 30s when he & his fellow inmates are released to go back home, John McCain writes of his comrades in captivity with compassionate hindsight & undimmed respect. Of his captors, he attempts to give them a humanity beyond their scope, after all, they were only following orders. Will we ever learn?

The generations of his grandfather, no goody-two shoes, in fact a bit of a hell-raiser & then his father who had to surmount his own father's reputation, are described in length, in detailed escapades & naval politics of the time.

A fascinating record of the last century as seen through three generations of naval men; the changes & the endurance; the family & community.

A bit of a slog for those of us not militarily minded, however, a must if you are to grasp a modicum of what this American man is all about. He has been my candidate of choice for some time now & I relished learning more about his life before politics, the times of his ancestors & the unrelenting saga of imprisonment on the other side of the world.

I also found myself reading unusual words such as: honor, dignity, duty, pride, humility, rage, shame & stubbornness. A man who has examined his life & found he was not wanting in any of the aforementioned attributes & a worthy candidate for hero.

Well done!
(07/23/00)

Rebecca