My Dad And John McCain

Monday night, May 30 at 7:00pm (central time), cable network A&E will premiere "Faith Of My Fathers", a two-hour A&E original movie based on Arizona Senator John McCain's best-selling 1999 autobiography. As of today I haven't read much about the production, except for a brief summary: that it deals with McCain's service as a navy pilot in Vietnam; his capture and imprisonment in Hanoi; and his release.

And of the major influences on his life. In all likelihood the film will explore the relationship between McCain and his father and grandfather, both Navy admirals (McCain's father was head of the Pacific fleet during the Vietnam War).

I suspect that my father will also be mentioned.

McCain attended Episcopal High School, a Virginia prep school just outside Washington, DC., from 1951-54.


McCain (upper left) in 1954 WHISPERS yearbook

As I've mentioned here many times, my dad was head of the English department and served as a football and baseball coach there. Daddy was McCain's junior varsity football coach for two years.

Our family lived on campus, just across the street from Dalrymple Hall, one of the school's three student dormitories; a hundred yards away to the northwest was McGuire Hall, where McCain lived his last year at EHS. The photos below picture me standing on the sidewalk in front of our home after church; behind me in the first pic you can see our beloved Chevrolet station wagon and, further back, McGuire Hall:


Spring at EHS 1954

In the second pic I'm holding a drawing I'd done in Sunday school of my cousin Owen and me entering our house. My sister Alicia, freak that she was and is, chose this occasion to stick her fucking hand in the way and piss me off; behind me to the left you can see the eastern entrance to McGuire Hall:


Fucking Alicia Ruins Another Photo

My own memories of John McCain are limited mostly to the occasions when he'd be assigned to our house to work off demerits--raking leaves, mowing our backyard, etc. One day I was innocently wandering around the campus and stopped to talk to some of the students at "Egypt", the school's designated outdoor student smoking area on the south wall of Stewart Gym, the school's wrestling gymnasium. McCain was there with Rives Richie, another student and frequent guest at our house. The evil McCain asked me if I wanted to smoke a cigarette and handed me his. I took a puff, inhaling, and choked on it and ran home. I could hear McCain laughing. I squealed on McCain later when he came over one night for burgers in our backyard, telling my dad, "That's the boy who made me smoke a cigarette!" Daddy and McCain just laughed at me.

Fifty years later George W. Bush referred to McCain as his lapdog. Now I'm laughing. The moral: Fuck with me and God will punish you.

FAITH OF MY FATHERS has a chapter ("Worst Rat") devoted to McCain's prep school years as "Punk" McCain, an irascible troublemaker and all-around bad dude who skirted the school rules frequently and slipped off campus on occasion for the Gayety Burlesque in DC (one of my own favorite high school hangouts by the way). At the end of the chapter McCain writes (pp 113-116):

"I had good friends at Episcopal. Memory often accords our high school years the distinction of being among the happiest, most relaxed of our lives. I remember Episcopal in that light, and the friendships I formed there make up the better parts of my remembrance. But there was one unexpected friendship that enriched my life at EHS beyond measure.

"Were William B. Ravenel the only person I remember from high school, I would credit those days as among the best of my life. His influence over my life, while perhaps not apparent to most who have observed its progress, was more important and more benevolent than that of any other person save members of my family.

"Mr. Ravenel headed the English department at EHS, and he coached the junior varsity football team, on which I played. He had been a star running back at Davidson College and had a master's degree from Duke University. Stocky and compact, he still had the appearance and manner of an athlete but without the callowness that often marks men who live in the shadow of their long-ago successes on the playing field.

"Like most men of his generation, Mr. Ravenel had known far greater danger than that posed by a tough defensive line. He had served in Patton's tank corps during the Third Army's aggressive advance across Europe and had survived its hard encounters with Hitler's panzer divisions. He was a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, the only master at the school who still served in the military.

"With his craggy face and athlete's build, he was a rugged-looking man. He seemed to his students to be as wise and capable as any man could expect to be. He loved English literature, and he taught us to love it as well. He had a way of communicating with his students that was uniquely effective and personal. He made us appreciate how profound were the emotions that animated the characters of Shakespeare's tragedies. Macbeth and Hamlet, in his care, were as compelling and revealing to boys as they are to the most learned and insightful scholar. He wasn't Mr. Chips, but he was as close to that ideal teacher as anyone is ever likely to find. No other master had half as much of our repect and affection. My class dedicated our senior yearbook to him. He was, simply, the best man at the school; one of the best men I have ever known.

WHISPERS Dedication 1954

"Demerits required the offender to march ceaselessly around the long circle drive in the front of the school or to tend the yard of a master's house. It was my good fortune to have received for my many transgressions assignment to work in Mr. Ravenel's yard. Perhaps the school authorities knew they were doing me a favor--knew that Mr. Ravenel was best able to repair the all too evident flaws in my character.

"I don't know if it was their benevolence or Providence that brought me to his attention. Neither do I understand why it was that Mr. Ravenel took such an interest in me, seeing in me something that few others did. But that he did take an interest in me was apparent to all. And as he personified the ideal of every student, Mr. Ravenel's regard for me signaled my classmates that I had some merit despite the fact that they and I had to strain to see it...

"In the fall of my senior year, a member of the junior varsity football team had broken training and been found out. I cannot recall the exact nature of the offense, but it was serious enough to merit expulsion from the team. Mr. Ravenel called a team meeting, and most of the players argued that the accused be dropped from the team. I stood and offered the only argument for a less severe punishment.

"The student in question had, in fact, broken training. But unlike the rest of us, he had chosen at the start of the year not to sign a pledge promising to abide by the training rules faithfully. Had he signed the pledge, he would have been expelled from school, because violating the pledge constituted an honor offense. Had he signed it, I wouldn't have defended him. But he had not. Moreover, he had not been caught breaking training, but had confessed the offense and expressed his remorse freely, without fear of discovery. I thought his behavior was no less honorable than that of a student who signed the pledge and adhered to its provisions.

"So did Mr. Ravenel. But he kept his own counsel for most of our discussion, preferring, as was his way, to let his boys reason the thing out for ourselves.

"At the start, most of my teammates wanted to hang the guy. But I argued that he had made a mistake that he sincerely regretted, and, uncoerced, had admitted the infraction. His behavior warranted no further disciplinary action. As I talked, I noticed Mr. Ravenel nodding his head. When some of the other guys started to come around to my point of view, Mr. Ravenel closed the discussion by voicing support for my judgment. The team then voted to drop the matter.

"After the meeting broke up, Mr. Ravenel approached me and shook my hand. With relief evident in his voice, he told me we had done the right thing and thanked me for my efforts. He allowed that before the meeting he had been anxious about its outcome. He had hoped the matter would be resolved as it had been, but was uncertain it would. Still, he had not wanted to be the one who argued for exoneration; he wanted the decision to be ours and not his. He said he was proud of me.


Daddy (right) coaching JV football in the 50's

"I have never forgotten the confidence his praise gave me. Nor have I ever forgotten the man who praised me. Many years later, when I came home from Vietnam, Mr. Ravenel was the only person outside my family whom I wanted to see. I felt he was someone to whom I could explain what had happened to me, and who would understand. That is a high tribute to Mr. Ravenel. For I have never met a prisoner of war who felt he could explain the experience to anyone who had not shared it.

"I regret that I was never able to pay him that tribute. Mr. Ravenel had died of a heart attack [just months after my capture by the North Vietnamese]. He lived for only fifty-three years. His early death was a great loss to his family, friends, and students, and to everyone who had been blessed with his company; a loss I found difficult to accept."

I have more to add to this, but I'll save it for later.