Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Some thoughts on John McCain

I cannot claim even partial responsibility for coming up with this info, so I will have you check out "my 2 cents" blog and "scott" for the rest of the story. (FYI - These blogs have adult content so don't pop over for a boo and a look see unless you are an adult)

This is directly from Scott's blog.

Many people following this election know that John Sydney McCain is the son and grandson of Navy admirals and that by dint of his birth he was afforded a degree of latitude in his military career for less than stellar behavior that goes along with a family tree like that; such as being one of the worst students in his class at Annapolis yet still managing to graduate.
Yet what many don’t realise is that thanks to McCain’s lineage — a lineage providing connections much like George W. Bush’s — his actions as a Navy pilot that would have resulted in dismissal from the service and possible court martial in anyone else have apparently become a virtual black hole in history.
And part of that historical black hole is that McCain has frequently been accused by men with whom he served in the Navy as being the person directly responsible for the deaths of 131 of his shipmates in 1967 and with whom he served on board the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal {CV-59}.

McCain was acknowledged by many of his peers at the time as being an unsafe pilot and irresponsible hot dog — by the time of the Forrestal incident McCain had crashed four aircraft that he was piloting, a record that in any other naval aviator would have ended a career — and one of the unsafe practices that McCain was notorious for was a thing known as a “wet start” of his aircraft.
A wet start is when the pilot of a jet allows kerosene or jet fuel to pool in the engine and then, once enough fuel has accumulated, the pilot ignites his engine which results in a huge flame being shot to the rear. The purpose of this is to scare the shit out of the pilot in the plane immediately behind you who is waiting to take off.
Wet starts are illegal in the Navy but were common during the Vietnam era among hot young fighter jocks like McCain and by all accounts he enjoyed performing them whenever he thought he could get away with it.
On July 29th 1967, John McCain was in his A-4 Skyhawk aboard the USS Forrestal waiting to be taxied onto the steam catapult in order to launch from the deck of the ship.
Behind his aircraft was an F-4 Phantom jet fully loaded with ordinance including M-34 air to ground Zuni rockets.
At 10:52 AM as McCain waited for take off instructions reports from sailors on the scene indicate that he apparently decided to shake up the pilot of the F-4 to his rear and he performed a wet start on his jet.

The flame from his aircraft’s engine shot back reaching the Phantom and ignited the solid fuel motor on one of the Zuni missiles under the wing of that aircraft. The missile shot across the flight deck of the crowded carrier and slammed into the belly tank of a parked A-4D Skyhawk next to McCain’s craft and ignited the 400 gallons of JP-5 jet fuel in the tank.
When the fuel tank exploded it knocked two 1,000 pound bombs off their mounts and the burning fuel that spread across the deck ignited one of the bombs. The resulting explosion started a chain reaction, cooking off ordinance that was being loaded onto waiting aircraft all across the rear of the huge ship.

One young sailor ran into the flames and found the strength to pick up a red hot 250 pound bomb that was on the verge of exploding and carried it to the side of the ship and threw it overboard.
The flight deck fire was brought under control in about an hour but the burning fuel that leaked into the hanger deck below caused even more ordinance to explode and that fire took more than 12 hours to extinguish.
At the end of the ordeal 131 sailors were dead — either blown to pieces or burned to death –and 168 were badly injured and before the smoke had even cleared or all the dead and wounded counted the navy had rushed John McCain off the aircraft carrier to the USS Oriskany, the only uninjured person on board the Foresstal to be evacuated in this way.
Sailors who were on board that day contend that the Navy removed McCain from the stricken carrier because they feared for his life at the hands of his fellow shipmates.
Needless to say, many of the sailors who lived through that horror have claimed that the Navy apparently hushed up much of the investigation and scrubbed the official findings so that McCain would never be able to be held to account and as of this date McCain has refused to release the complete set of his Navy records for examination — something that John Kerry did in 2004 during his presidential run.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just heard about the incident involving McCain on the Forrestal in 1967 yesterday and decided to do some research into the matter. If it's true, the ramifications are significant and would no doubt influence the election. If untrue, then there are a lot of people out there spreading malicious heresay who, quite frankly, should forfeit their right to vote.

I found that National Geographic had recently done a TV show as part of its "Seconds to Disaster" series focusing on the disaster aboard the Forrestal. It turns out that there was no aircraft behind McCain's so this 'wet start' thing wouldn't have made a difference even if it were true. The Zuni missile fired from the starboard side of the ship across to the port side where McCain's plane and others were positioned.

McCain may well have been a hot shot pilot and the 'wet start' accusation may be true (or not). Regardless, as far as the Forrestal incident is concerned, it can quite easily be proven that McCain had no role in initiating it.

So, my curiosity is satisfied. Though I've not yet made up my mind which ticket to vote for in November, I have learned there are a great many people either purposely rewriting history or passing such information along without due diligence. All those involved, even peripherally, ought to be very ashamed and do whatever possible to correct things and regain their credibility.

JCB said...

I find it interesting that this comment was made "anonymously". I decided to post it anyway because I am certainly open to debate.

To suggest that I am spreading malicious heresay and should forfeit my right to vote is humourous. Basically this individual does not belief in freedom of speech and in the right I have not only to publish what I believe to be true. So much for the constitution!

I don't believe that "it can be easily proven rgat MCCain had no role in initiating it".

For someone's curiosity to be satisfied simply by a documentary on National Geographic (which I also watched) is oversimplictic.

I certainly did not pass this on without due diligence. I believe my sources and my research into the incident are supported. I am not ashamed and do not feel I need to "regain my credibility" - especially to someone who comments anonymously!

This anonymous commented probably still belives there were Weapons of Mass destruction that validate the illegal declaration of war!