The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 00:52, 12 July 2008 [1].

Early life and military career of John McCain[edit]

previous FAC (15:43, 5 April 2008)


Self-nominator. The major objection raised by the first FAC has been dealt with: McCain-written sourcing has been minimized, with in particular the POW section now being primarily based on the two standard works that cover all the American POWs in Vietnam, Hubbell's P.O.W. and Rochester and Kiley's Honor Bound. All remaining McCain-written cites now contain an explanation in the footnote for why they are being used. Another major improvement in the article came with the partial release of McCain's military records by the Navy a few weeks ago; the article now gives more specific dates, assignments, reasons for medals awarded, etc., than it did before. Various other improvements have been made since the last FAC as well. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Otherwise sources look good, all links check out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I removed a couple sets of parentheses.Ferrylodge (talk) 17:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a MoS guideline about parenthetical statements being bad? If so, where? To me, they're a useful syntactic tool for including extra information without creating a digression or confusing the narrative. In one case, I've restored the parenthetical, for reasons given in the edit summary. I'm certainly willing to look at them on a case-by-case basis, but I don't understand the notion that Featured Articles shouldn't use them much (I may well have missed it somewhere). Wasted Time R (talk) 21:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I consider most parenthetical statements unnecessary for encyclopedic writing. If it's a digression, then it doesn't belong. --Moni3 (talk) 14:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This may be your view, and you are free to use this approach in articles you write, but I don't see any WP guidelines against the use of parenthetical expressions. The FA Franklin D. Roosevelt article, to pick one I took at random, has about 20 real parenthetical statements and expressions in it (in addition to abbreviation introductions, date ranges, etc.). So I doubt there is any FAC prohibition or admonition against them either. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I changed "were never able to" to "did not" which is a bit more matter-of-fact. Who knows what the North Vietnamese could have done if they had tried harder?Ferrylodge (talk) 17:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Break" here means to give "confessions", military secrets, anti-American statements, etc. (See definition 21 at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/break.) That's what the North Vietnamese weren't able to do again. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to disagree. The article already quotes psychologists: "Psychological tests, given to all the returning POWs, showed that McCain had 'adjusted exceptionally well to repatriation' and had 'an ambitious, striving, successful pattern of adjustment'.[159]" Moreover, I don't see why a person who goes through all that would not have positive psychological effects. Solitary confinement provides time for introspection and contemplation, which can be very beneficial, and one can learn a great deal about human nature by being thrust into such an extreme situation. So, I don't think there's any reason to assume psychological damage, especially given that he does not seem to have sustained any brain injury.Ferrylodge (talk) 17:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Being cloistered in a monastery gives one the opportunity for personal reflection. Being beaten within an inch of your life and tortured to say things that go against everything you've been taught does not foster a well-adjusted psychological state. Is there a direct quote from McCain that states he never had any adverse mental effect from his time as a POW? It appears from the article now that he has experienced more trauma from sleeping around and hurting his wife than he did at being tortured. I think that's an odd position of priorities. --Moni3 (talk) 17:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to the cited source, McCain "felt that he had profited by his experience and had changed significantly" and "learned more about himself, about others."[5] Being subject to physical abuse can sometimes have a strengthening effect, though it's not something one would do voluntarily. Should we put this quote into the article?Ferrylodge (talk) 17:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This became a big issue in McCain's 2000 campaign, when Republican opponents started circulating the word that McCain was mentally unstable as a result of his POW experience. (See John_McCain_presidential_campaign,_2000#Campaign_developments_1999.) McCain had to release 1,500 pages of his Navy and civilian medical records, to show that this was not the case. Although he didn't experience nightmares or flashbacks, the sound keys rattling would startle him (echoing the sound the prisons guard had made); I almost included this once before, and have now done so. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To the bigger question of how did the POW experience affect him, the whole last chapter of Faith of My Fathers attempts to grapple with this. I've included the biggest point he makes, at the end of the POW sections: "He also gained an appreciation, from experiencing the mutual help and organized resistance of the POWs, that his earlier individualism needed to be tempered by a belief in causes greater than self-interest.[120]" He makes some other points too, but I think it's better to "show, not tell" here: as the biographical narrative indicates, he hit the ground running (figuratively, not literally) when he came back, with a sense of purpose he didn't have before, and hasn't stopped since. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Different strokes....Ferrylodge (talk) 17:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmpf! As the footnote text indicates, some (maybe most, don't know) of the affairs were while he was on flight stops around the country, and thus not in Jacksonville. But, from the available sources, McCain seems to have been the "my type is every type" kind of guy ... Wasted Time R (talk) 22:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This wasn't a complaint. It was just a statement of surprise. --Moni3 (talk) 00:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it has to be ponderous. Can you include something like ...were won over by the force of his personality, which had the effect, according to Friend X of being "adjective", and Friend Y as "another adjective". --Moni3 (talk) 00:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It would end up as
The same happened with most of McCain's other friends, who were eventually won over by the force of his personality, which family friend Nancy Reynolds described as "irrestible", and his frequent discussions what had happened, about which liaison office subordinate James McGovern said, "He has always felt very guilty about it."
We're now giving this more space than how he reconciled with his children, more space than the divorce terms, etc. I just don't see the merit in it. Are we doubting Kristof's account of this so much? Are there other sources out there which claim that McCain lost most of his friends after the divorce? Wasted Time R (talk) 03:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this is a matter of how much space is devoted to one issue or another, but how information is presented as neutrally as possible. It's a bit frightening to think what impact this article might have on voters. Because of the time of year, this article should get extra scrutiny for POV. This is part of why I am concerned about the unreal aspect of McCain's not being bothered by his POW experience and the extra helping of guilt about sleeping around on his first wife. This illogical juxtaposition of emotions sound like the perfect things a candidate should say to sway public opinion. The editors of this article have more responsibility than other FAC editors. This may be unfortunate, but I don't think so. We have to hold you to a bit of a higher standard knowing how often this article is used by readers, and for what purpose. I admire you for bringing the article this far and working so diligently to make sure all the comments are addressed. --Moni3 (talk) 14:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton for three years, so I'm used to the added POV scrutiny and welcome it :-) But we're not claiming that he isn't "bothered" by some aspects of his POW experience. As the article says about his forced "confession", "He was haunted then and since with the feeling that he had dishonored his country, his family, his comrades and himself by his statement,[119][120] but as he later wrote, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."[89]" And of course, "His injuries left him incapable of raising his arms above his head to this day.[25]" which bothers him every day (he has trouble putting jackets on, and can't comb his hair). But in terms of general psychological effects, he's gotten a clean bill of health from a number of medical/psychiatric exams, many of which were conducted in the 1970s, long before he was viewed as a politician much less a presidential candidate. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure how much this is worth commenting on further. I guess you can decide. I'm not saying McCain should be under the bed with a knife in his teeth at the sound of loud bangs. There's a difference between having nightmares, anger at your captors, and shame for being broken, and being considered mentally ill. He doesn't have to be diagnosed with a neurosis or a psychosis for him to be affected by his experiences for years after. I wouldn't fault him for it at all. It makes him more human and seem less like a cardboard prop of a political machine. It wouldn't be his tensing up at the rattling of keys that would concern me about his being president. I think the article so far is written very well. It's quite engaging and tells a remarkable story about a young man's life. It just raises questions of logic; if McCain has said that the sum lesson of his time in captivity was that it made him more reflective and stronger, my opinion would be that he really hasn't dealt with the anger and pain of it all, or he's lying. --Moni3 (talk) 17:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
McCain has said: "Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war. I hate war, and I know how terrible its costs are."[6] Is there anything like this currently in the Wikipedia article?Ferrylodge (talk) 17:29, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That remark was made in 2008. I prefer to use the quote that he said a couple of days after the 1967 Forrestal fire, that's already in the article: ""It's a difficult thing to say. But now that I've seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I'm not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam."[75]"
McCain hasn't said that that was the sum lesson of this time in captivity. He spends a whole chapter ("Free Men") in Faith of My Fathers on this. Perhaps the key paragraph in terms of this discussion is this: "Neither did we expect to soon forget the years of anguish we had suffered under our captors' 'humane and lenient' treatment. A few men never recovered. They were the last, tragic casualties in a long, bitter war. But most of us healed from our wounds, the physical and spiritual ones, and have lived happy and productive lives since." (p. 345) To support that conclusion, you can also read POW James Stockdale's New York Times op-ed on this, "John McCain in the crucible", which he wrote after McCain was being hit with instability rumors during his 2000 presidential campaign. Wasted Time R (talk) 17:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've rephrased it: "Later in March, McCain attended his father's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, wearing his uniform for the final time before signing his discharge papers, and the same day saw him flying to Phoenix with his wife Cindy to begin his new life."Ferrylodge (talk) 17:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I realize now I can fix the date in question - it's March 27, five days after Jack's death, per Worth the Fighting For. I've reworded again, based on that. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:58, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry it took me so long to return. --Moni3 (talk) 15:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, and thanks! Wasted Time R (talk) 21:17, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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