McCain: Man of distinction

Arizona Republic: Let the record show that John Sidney McCain never quit on his country.

When he nearly died in a fire that killed 134 of his shipmates on an aircraft carrier in the Tonkin Gulf, he went on to fly combat missions.

When he nearly died ejecting out of a plane over North Vietnam, he steeled himself for nearly six heroic years of captivity as an American POW.

When he nearly died from torture in a Hanoi prison, he came home and began a career of service in Congress.

And as he neared death with cancer and its punishing treatment regimen, he railed against a brutal Syrian regime and the excesses of a populist president.

The man had no quit.

In one of America’s dark hours, when the country was beset upon itself, McCain used his last great speech to call on the leaders of this country to stop savaging one another, to start working together. John McCain was a man of sturdy good judgment who was most composed when others were losing their minds. As xenophobia took over Arizona’s political landscape, McCain led a “Gang of Eight” in the U.S. Senate in pursuit of humane immigration reform. He understood that America could not turn its back on modern immigrants any more than it could disavow its immigrant past.

McCain served his state and his country with integrity and high distinction.