Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir

by John McCain, Mark Salter

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Senator John McCain’s deeply moving memoir is the story of three generations of warriors and the ways that sons are shaped and enriched by their fathers.

John McCain’s grandfather, a four-star admiral and one of the navy’s greatest commanders, led the strongest aircraft carrier force of the Third Fleet during World War II. McCain’s father, also a four-star admiral, served as commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific during the Vietnam War.

It was in Vietnam that John McCain III faced the most difficult challenge of his life. A naval aviator, he was shot down over Hanoi in 1967. Recognized as the son of a top commander, McCain was tortured and imprisoned for five and a half years. Despite this, he refused Vietnamese offers of an early release. What McCain learned from his grandfather and father enabled him to survive those hard years.

A testament to the power of human endurance, Faith of My Fathers is the story of three men who fought for their country with courage and emerged with their honor intact.

Praise for Faith of My Fathers

“A thoughtful first-person take on survival, both physical and psychological . . . hard to top and impossible to read without being moved.”—USA Today
 
“A candid, moving, and entertaining memoir . . . impressive and inspiring, the story of a man touched and molded by fire who loved and served his country in a time of great trouble, suffering, and challenge.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“A serious, utterly gripping account of faith, fathers, and the military.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“Faith of My Fathers may also appeal to those who flocked to Saving Private Ryan and kept Brokaw's The Greatest Generation near the top of the bestseller lists.”—Library Journal
 
“Faith of My Fathers is the powerful story of a war hero. In it we learn much of what matters most. As prisoner (and later Senator) McCain instructs us: Glory is not an end in itself, but rather a reward for valor and faith. And the greatest freedom and human fulfillment comes from engaging in a noble enterprise larger than oneself. Faith of My Fathers teaches deep truths that are valid in any age but that warrant special attention in our own.”—William J. Bennett

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399590894
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/04/2016
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	245,251
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Senator John McCain entered the Naval Academy in June of 1954 and served in the United States Navy until 1981. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona in 1982 and to the Senate in 1986. The Republican Party’s nominee for president in the 2008 election, McCain was also the author of Faith of My Fathers, Worth the Fighting For, Why Courage Matters, Character Is Destiny, Hard Call, Thirteen Soldiers, and The Restless Wave. John McCain died in 2018.

Mark Salter is the author, with John McCain, of several books, including Faith of My Fathers and The Restless Wave. He served on Senator McCain’s staff for almost twenty years.

Read an Excerpt

Fifth from the Bottom
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Excerpted from "Faith of My Fathers"
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Copyright © 2016 John McCain.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

William J. Bennett

Faith of My Fathers is the gripping story of a war hero. In it we learn much of what matters most. As prisoner (and later Senator) McCain instructs us: Glory is not an end in itself, but rather a reward for valor and faith. And the greatest freedom and human fulfillment comes from engaging in a noble enterprise, larger than oneself. Faith of My Fathers teaches deep truths that are valid in any age--but truths that warrant special attention in our own.

Reading Group Guide

Introduction

John McCain is one of the most admired leaders in the United States government, but his deeply-felt memoir is not a political one and ends before his election to Congress. With candor and ennobling power, McCain tells a story that, in the words of Newsweek, "makes the other presidential candidates look like pygmies."

John McCain learned about life and honor from his grandfather and father, both four-star admirals in the U.S. Navy. This is a memoir about their lives, their heroism, and the ways that sons are enriched and shaped by fathers. McCain's grandfather was one of the navy's greatest commanders, and led the strongest aircraft carrier force of the Third Fleet in key battles during World War II. McCain's father followed a similar path, equally distinguished by heroic service in the navy, as a submarine commander during World War II. He, too, rose to the rank of four-star general, making the McCains the first family in American history to achieve that distinction.

John McCain faced the most difficult challenge of his life in Vietnam. A naval aviator, he was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and was seriously injured. When Vietnamese military officers realized he was the son of a top commander, they offered McCain early release in an effort to embarrass the United States. Acting from a sense of honor taught to him by his father and the U.S. Naval Academy, McCain refused the offer. He was tortured, held in solitary confinement, and imprisoned for five and a half years.

Faith of My Fathers is about what McCain learned from his grandfather and father, and how their example enabled him to survive those hard years. It is a story of three imperfect men who faced adversity and emerged with their honor intact. Ultimately, Faith of My Fathers shows us, with great feeling and appreciation, what fathers give to their sons, and what endures.

Questions for Discussion

1. John McCain and John Sidney McCain lived much of their childhoods without their fathers. However, even with this absence, their fathers became a major force and influence in their every day lives. How did this come to be?


2. According to McCain, an officer's honor is greatly defined by his obligation to the enlisted men he commands. How did this relationship between the officers and enlisted men influence the type of military career McCain, his father, and his grandfather had?


3. McCain writes that he "wince[s]" at the racist overtones of his grandfather's comments on the Japanese during WWII, but believes that they only stem from a need to hate your enemy. Are you able to understand or distinguish a difference between racism and war-time hatred? How have these differences in sentiment and connotation affected society during WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and now the war in Iraq?


4. McCain describes in detail some of the hazing and rigorous structure imposed on the "plebes" at the Academy. How do you feel these practices prepared McCain for combat and later for his experiences as a POW?


5. McCain writes, "Communicating not only affirmed our humanity. It kept us alive." The prisoners had secret ways of contacting each other and found their only real strength came from each other. What does this say about human resilience? Do you think McCain would have been able to survive the camp had he been alone?


6. Throughout his story McCain mentions faith and its role in helping him not only survive his time as a POW but also in becoming a man his father and grandfather could be proud of. What different things did he need to have faith in to become the man he is today? When he writes, "... all I had left of my dignity was the faith or my fathers," to whom does "fathers" refer? How was he able to draw on his faith to survive his continual torture?


7. Towards the end of his story, McCain states that the United States was afflicted with an "identity crisis" after the Vietnam War. However, he goes on to say that "America's period of self-doubt" has ended. Do you agree with this statement? How would you define America's identity now? What do you think the largest factors in creating this identity are?

Interviews

Essay By Author

September 1999

Senator John McCain Remembers a Courageous Comrade

In his poem "The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water," Yeats wrote this verse:

I hear the old, old men say
All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.

Although I am, thankfully, not yet stuck with the appellation "old, old man," I grow closer to that rank than to my much-enjoyed and terribly misspent youth, and I take Yeats's point. Like most people, when I reflect back on the adventures, joys, and beauty of youth, I feel a longing for what is past and cannot be restored. But though the pleasures and vanities of youth prove ephemeral, something better can endure and endure until our last moment on earth. And that is the love we give and the honor we earn when, at a moment in our lives, we sacrifice with others for a cause greater than our self-interest.

We cannot always choose the moments. Oftentimes, they arrive unbidden by us. We can choose to let the moments pass, and avoid the difficulties they entail. But the loss we would incur by that choice is much dearer than the tribute we once paid to vanity.

When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest ambition, and that all glory was self-glory. My parents tried to teach me otherwise, as did the United States Naval Academy. But I didn't understand the lesson until later in life when, as a prisoner of war, I confronted challenges to my self-respect that I never expected to face.

In that confrontation, I discovered that I was dependent on others to a greater extent than I had everrealized, but that neither they nor the cause we served made any claims on my identity. On the contrary, they gave me a larger sense of myself than I had before. I discovered that nothing is more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than yourself, something that encompasses you but is not defined by your existence alone. Many good men, better men than I, taught me that lesson; among them was Mike Christian.

Mike was a Navy bombardier-navigator who had been shot down and captured in Vietnam the same year I had, 1967. He had grown up near Selma, Alabama. His family was poor. He had not worn shoes until he was 13 years old. Character was their wealth, and they raised Mike to be a good, righteous man.

What few packages the Vietnamese allowed us to receive from our families often contained handkerchiefs, scarves, and other clothing items. For some time, Mike had been taking little scraps of red and white cloth, and with a needle fashioned from a splinter of bamboo, he laboriously sewed an American flag onto the inside of his blue prison shirt. Every afternoon, before we ate our soup, we would hang Mike's flag on the wall of our cell and together recite the Pledge of Allegiance. No other event of the day had as much meaning to us.

The guards discovered Mike's flag one afternoon during a routine inspection and confiscated it. They returned that evening and took Mike outside. For our instruction as much as Mike's, they beat him severely, just outside our cell, puncturing his eardrum and breaking several of his ribs. When they had finished, they dragged him bleeding and nearly senseless back into our cell, and we helped him crawl to his place on the concrete platform that served as our bed. After things quieted down, we all lay down to go to sleep. Before drifting off, I happened to look toward a corner of the room, where one of the four naked lightbulbs that were always on in our cell cast a dim light on Mike Christian. He had crawled there quietly when he thought the rest of us were sleeping. With his eyes nearly swollen shut from the beating, he had picked up his needle and thread and begun sewing a new flag.

"All that's beautiful drifts away," except love and honor. And that makes all the difference, all the difference in the world.

—Senator John McCain

Introduction

September 1999

In Faith of My Fathers, former presidential candidate John McCain, whose tumultuous life and successful political career were documented in the bestselling The Nightingale's Song, now tells his own story, with a focus on the men whose guidance, example, and influence have served to help make him the man he is today. Senator McCain composed the following essay exclusively for Barnes & Noble.com; in it he pays tribute to the courage and commitment exhibited by one of his fellow POW's during the Vietnam War.

Editorial Reviews

A thoughtful first-person take on survival, both physical and psychological . . . hard to top and impossible to read without being moved.”—USA Today
 
“A candid, moving, and entertaining memoir . . . impressive and inspiring, the story of a man touched and molded by fire who loved and served his country in a time of great trouble, suffering, and challenge.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“A serious, utterly gripping account of faith, fathers, and the military.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“Faith of My Fathers may also appeal to those who flocked to Saving Private Ryanand kept Brokaw's The Greatest Generation near the top of the bestseller lists.”—Library Journal
 
“Faith of My Fathers is the powerful story of a war hero. In it we learn much of what matters most. As prisoner (and later Senator) McCain instructs us: Glory is not an end in itself, but rather a reward for valor and faith. And the greatest freedom and human fulfillment comes from engaging in a noble enterprise larger than oneself.Faith of My Fathers teaches deep truths that are valid in any age but that warrant special attention in our own.”—William J. Bennett

From the Publisher

Senator John McCain won't win his party's presidential nomination, or even receive the vice presidential nod, but his autobiography can't be seen as anticlimactic. In ways, the failure of his campaign allows us to peruse his relaxed and often self-critical memoir in a leisurely and nonpartisan way. His life progresses in an almost storybook way: The descendant of two four-star admirals, "silver spoon sailor" McCain bucked his reputation in Vietnam, becoming a battle-hungry naval aviator. After being shot down over Hanoi in 1967, McCain once again found himself singled out because of his family's celebrity status. Offered early release by his North Vietnamese captors, he refused, opting instead for continued imprisonment, and the systematic torture it entailed. For the right audience, gripping stuff.

Barnes and Noble, Inc.

...[A] refreshing reminder that at least one of our politicians has endured hardships greater than a special prosecutor....[A] timely testament to what might be called military morality. And that is something to ponder after a moment when President Clinton's decision to go to war in the Balkans wreaked nearly as much havoc among the Republicans as among the Serbs.
—Talk

Seth Lipsky

Faith of My Fathers is the powerful story of a war hero. In it we learn much of what matters most. As prisoner (and later Senator) McCain instructs us: Glory is not an end in itself, but rather a reward for valor and faith. And the greatest freedom and human fulfillment comes from engaging in a noble enterprise, larger than oneself. Faith of My Fathers teaches deep truths that are valid in any age-but truths that warrant special attention in our own.

William J. Bennett

Faith of My Fathers is a gripping story of character and courage: character passed down from generation to generation by sterling examples of family bonds and devotion to duty; courage that ultimately comes from within, as John McCain learned in the brutal prison camps of North Vietnam. This is a sobering and glorious book that you won't be able to put down.

Colin L. Powell

As the 2000 presidential campaign heats up, Republican hopeful McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, weighs in with the most engrossing book to appear in a long time from a presidential candidate. Writing with Salter, his administrative assistant, McCain carefully avoids the pitfalls of self-promotion, knowing that he has a larger, more interesting story to tell than merely why he wants to be president. McCain is famous for the five years he endured as a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton, the most notorious POW camp in Vietnam. Less well known are two other John McCains: his father and grandfather, both of whom served as admirals in the U.S. Navy. The military service of all three men forms the basis of this gripping, heartfelt reflection on war and naval culture. McCain's grandfather was a legendary old salt, a hard-drinking gambler who fought in WWII next to giants like Nimitz and Halsey. McCain's father was a submarine commander who rose to become commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific during the Vietnam War. Almost half the book is devoted to McCain's grueling tenure as a POW. When he was shot down over Hanoi in 1967, he broke both arms, one shoulder and one knee. During his imprisonment, McCain was tortured repeatedly and frequently locked in solitary confinement. The faith McCain avows is a simple one: "in God, country, and each other"--each other being his comrades at the Hanoi Hilton and, later, his fellow citizens. McCain's memoir is too good to be dismissed as simply another campaign book. It is a serious, utterly engrossing account of faith, fathers and military tradition. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This is the story of the McCains, a family with a distinguished history of naval service: John Sr. (also known as Slew or Popeye), John Jr., and John III, the author and currently the senior U.S. senator from Arizona. Senator McCain pays homage to his grandfather and father by relating tales of their significant contributions in World War II and, in the case of John Jr., Vietnam. He also relates, in very moving ways, the high moral and professional standards that these two men set for him and how he tried to emulate their lives by attending the Naval Academy and pursuing a career in the navy as a pilot. Nearly half of the book deals with the senator's five and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, captured after his plane was shot down. The reader learns in some detail the horrors inflicted on the future senator but also how he was able to remain strong during his long incarceration. As he is seriously considering a presidential run, anyone interested in learning more about John McCain would be well advised to read this book.--Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes Univ., Wilkes Barre, PA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Conservative Republican presidential candidate John McCain offers a conveniently-timed biographical account of his years fighting, bonding with fellow soldiers, and suffering capture during the Vietnam War. He tirelessly credits his father and grandfather, both WWII naval officers whose stories he also tells, with his own accomplishments. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

It is, as they say, a good read, which even registered Democrats and just about anyone on the political spectrum right of Jane Fonda would find engaging, sometimes funny, and often profoundly moving.
— National Review

Geoffrey Norman

A candid, moving, and entertaining memoir by the US senator from Arizona and potential presidential candidate.

Kirkus Reviews

Memoirs are often effective when read by the author, but only if the author is a good reader. John McCain has a good story to tell and tells it well. While the senator from Arizona is used to speaking in public, this reading is no political speech. It’s more like a living-room chat, in which he talks lovingly of the lives of his father and grandfather, both decorated Navy veterans, and of his own experiences in the Navy, particularly as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In a straightforward style, he lets events speak for themselves. His choice to end the book with his election to the House of Representatives in 1982 keeps it from being an election-year puff piece. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

APR/MAY 00 - AudioFile