Of all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential campaign trail, there is one example of selfless heroism that stands out. Only in this story, the hero is not McCain but a humble Vietnamese peasant. On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter in Hanoi at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.
In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.
Then, when a furious mob at the water's edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, On drove them back.
Nearly three decades later, the Vietnamese government confirmed he was indeed the rescuer and, in a 1996 meeting in Hanoi, McCain embraced and thanked On and presented him with a Senate memento.
From that brief encounter to his death at the age of 88 two years ago, On never heard from the senator again, and three years after their meeting, McCain published an autobiography that makes no mention of his apparent debt to On.
It is a snub On took to his death. His widow, Bui Thi Lien, 71, said: "In his last years, my husband was very sad sometimes. He would say, 'Mr McCain has forgotten me.' Mr McCain would be dead if it weren't for my husband. He would never have returned to his family and he wouldn't be in the presidential race today."
In his 1999 autobiography, Faith Of My Fathers, which laid the ground for his first, unsuccessful run for president in 2000, McCain wrote a Boy's Own-style narrative of his rescue: "When I came to, I was being hauled ashore on two bamboo poles," he wrote.
Things got ugly when he reached dry ground, the book recalls. "A crowd of several hundred Vietnamese gathered around me as I lay dazed before them, shouting wildly at me, stripping my clothes off, spitting on me, kicking and striking me repeatedly.'
What followed, according to McCain, was five-and-a-half years of torture and brutal beatings as a prisoner of war - an account that has given a steely edge to his candidacy by establishing him as a true American war hero.
But the story is at odds with the version uncovered by Vietnam veteran Chuck Searcy, who lives in Hanoi and is in charge of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Fund.
"In 1995, Mr On gave me a letter he wanted me to deliver to McCain." said Searcy. "It said, 'I am the guy who pulled you out of the lake and I have followed your progress over the years. I wish the best for you and your family and I hope some day you will be president of the United States.'
"No one thought of McCain as a future president at that time. I thought it was endearing. I sent the letter to McCain's office and I got back a sniffy response from some assistant saying, 'Mr McCain isn't interested in these fanciful stories.'"
The reason for the response was that, now he was a prominent senator, claiming to have saved McCain had become something of a cottage industry in Hanoi.
Searcy, 63, said: "There had been a lot of preposterous claims and I was skeptical at first. But I asked the neighbours around the lake if it was true and they said that was exactly how it happened."
Later the same year, Searcy met McCain at a veterans' reunion in Washington. "I mentioned the story of Mr On to him," he said. "He said 'Do you think this guy is for real?' and I said 'Yes, all the neighbours have confirmed it'. And he said 'Hell, I would like to meet this guy - next time I come over there, I'll set it up'."
McCain, then closely involved in rebuilding US-Vietnam relations, visited Hanoi in 1996, and a meeting was arranged with Searcy and On.
The get-together was overseen by Vietnamese government officials who, Searcy said, set up a commission of inquiry and confirmed On as the rescuer before allowing the meeting.
Searcy said: "Mr On was a wiry little guy. He looked as if he had only ever shaved once or twice and he had his old uniform on. He raced up to McCain and kept repeating his name as he embraced him."
Then, through an interpreter, On recounted the events of that day as McCain listened. "He launched into a very emotional description," said Searcy. "Mr On told him that suddenly they had seen this parachute coming down into their small lake.
"Everybody was afraid because they knew it was an American pilot and they didn't know what to do. He said he just instinctively grabbed this big bamboo log and threw it into the water and jumped in after it.
"One of his neighbors joined him and the two of them swam out to the parachute. Apparently McCain had broken both arms and one leg, and had sunk to the bottom, but they pulled him out of the lake.
"When they got to the bank, a couple of men attacked McCain, breaking his shoulder with a rifle butt and stabbing his leg. Mr On and a nurse who was at the scene both intervened.
"Mr On pushed them back and said: 'Stop. Leave him alone. When he was in the air bombing us, he was the enemy, but now he is on the ground, he is a helpless human being and you are not going to hurt him'. The crowd immediately backed away.
"That day, Mr On saved McCain twice - once from drowning and a second time from maybe being killed by the mob.
"McCain listened to Mr On. then he just nodded, said, 'Thank you very much,' and gave On a little Senate seal.
"It was the kind of thing you buy in the souvenir shop in the Senate basement. But Mr On, to the day he died, treated it as if it were a Congressional Medal of Honour."
Although McCain appeared to believe the story, it was one he would later seem to ignore in his autobiography and there was no more contact between the two men.
A decade later in 2006 when On died, an email was sent to McCain's office by a family friend requesting a message of condolence for the family. There was no response.
Article from earthtimes.org.If this is true ...well...nothing to say..
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