New Hampshire: The Real Facts

Getting to Know John McCain
By KARL ROVE WSJ April 30, 2008; Page A17

It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that
Doris Day. The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional
Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of
John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.

As we ate near the Days' home in Florida recently, I heard things
about Sen. McCain that were deeply moving and politically troubling.
Moving because they told me things about him the American people need
to know. And troubling because it is clear that Mr. McCain is one of
the most private individuals to run for president in history.

AP
Col. (Ret.) Bud Day with John McCain at a campaign stop in
Pensacola, Fla., in January.
When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to
know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know
about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain,
that means they will want to know more about him personally than he
has been willing to reveal.

Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It
involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese
prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor
broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in
prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States
and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part
of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast.
This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr.
Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe
punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the
prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the
floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into
place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and
the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the
treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was
Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain
serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one
point, after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found
himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped
Mr. McCain to help administer religious services to the other
prisoners.

Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's
sermons. "He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says, "and
sounded like a bona fide preacher." One of Mr. McCain's first sermons
took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar
what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." Mr. McCain said he and
his fellow prisoners shouldn't ask God to free them, but to help them
become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. It was
Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their
task was to act with honor.

Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese
practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with
his arms behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so
badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can't raise
his arms over his head.

One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the
end of his watch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly
after, on Christmas Day, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the
prison yard and drew a cross in the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain
later said that when he returned to Vietnam for the first time after
the war, the only person he really wanted to meet was that guard.

Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept
special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when
gravely ill. Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda
victory of the son and grandson of Navy admirals accepting special
treatment. "He wasn't corruptible then," Mr. Day says, "and he's not
corruptible today."

The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime valor.

For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's
orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands.
The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her
life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She
was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was
about.

Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and
years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her
husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter
Bridget.

I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned
from Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought
back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.

"We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and
"five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport
wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up
T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high
school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill"
for her care.

A few, but not many, of the stories told to me by the Days have been
written about, such as in Robert Timberg's 1996 book "A Nightingale's
Song." But Mr. McCain rarely refers to them on the campaign trail.
There is something admirable in his reticence, but he needs to
overcome it.

Private people like Mr. McCain are rare in politics for a reason.
Candidates who are uncomfortable sharing their interior lives limit
their appeal. But if Mr. McCain is to win the election this fall, he
has to open up.

Americans need to know about his vision for the nation's future,
especially his policy positions and domestic reforms. They also need
to learn about the moments in his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain
cannot make this a biography-only campaign – but he can't afford to
make it a biography-free campaign either. Unless he opens up more,
many voters will never know the experiences of his life that show his
character, integrity and essential decency.

These qualities mattered in America's first president and will matter
as Americans decide on their 44th president.