Sen. John McCain, from his days at the U.S. Naval Academy through his final years as the Senior Senator from Arizona.Β John Sidney McCain IIIΒ was born August 29, 1936 at Coco SoloΒ Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. His father and grandfather were four-star admirals in the U.S. Navy.

McCain followed his namesakes and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He asked for combat duty in 1967 and was assigned to the USS Forrestal, then the USS Oriskany during Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing campaign of North Vietnam. He was shot down and spent more than five years in a Hanoi prison. He was released in 1973 and went through physical rehabilitation. He attended the National War College and was the Navy liason to the U.S. Senate. He retired from the Navy in 1981.

McCain was elected to U.S. House of Representatives (Arizona District 1) in 1982 and moved to the U.S. Senate in 1987, succeeding Sen. Barry Goldwater.

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Sen. John McCain dead at 81

Sen. John McCain dead at 81

Sen. John McCain, who faced down his captors in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp with jut-jawed defiance and later turned his rebellious streak into a 35-year political career that took him to Congress and the Republican presidential nomination, died Saturday after battling brain cancer for more than a year. He was 81.

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