So what's the story behind John McCain and the USS Forrestal Incident that killed so many?

[Dari]

I saw a documentary on this last year on the History Channel channel and they didn't blame him for the accident but indicated that he was a major contributor to the accident.

What really happened that day that left 134 American soldiers dead?

 

[Red Dawn]

If I recall he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't believe he did anything wrong.

 

[shiner]

A rocket under an F4-Phantom on the deck misfired. McCain just happened to be lucky enough to be sitting in the aircraft that the misfired rocket struck.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: shinerburke
A rocket under an F4-Phantom on the deck misfired. McCain just happened to be lucky enough to be sitting in the aircraft that the misfired rocket struck.

What luck. Then after that he gets shot down and gets a warm bed at the Hanoi Hilton.

 

[shiner]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: shinerburke
A rocket under an F4-Phantom on the deck misfired. McCain just happened to be lucky enough to be sitting in the aircraft that the misfired rocket struck.

What luck. Then after that he gets shot down and gets a warm bed at the Hanoi Hilton.

At least he managed to get out of his aircraft, an A-4 Skyhawk if memory serves me, before a bomb underneath it exploded due to the fire.

 

[RY62]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: shinerburke
A rocket under an F4-Phantom on the deck misfired. McCain just happened to be lucky enough to be sitting in the aircraft that the misfired rocket struck.

What luck. Then after that he gets shot down and gets a warm bed at the Hanoi Hilton.

In case you missed the memo from the Obamessiah:

"For those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country ? no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary," Obama said. "And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides."

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: shinerburke

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: shinerburke
A rocket under an F4-Phantom on the deck misfired. McCain just happened to be lucky enough to be sitting in the aircraft that the misfired rocket struck.

What luck. Then after that he gets shot down and gets a warm bed at the Hanoi Hilton.

At least he managed to get out of his aircraft, an A-4 Skyhawk if memory serves me, before a bomb underneath it exploded due to the fire.

I know. He made it out alive, which was good. But damn, luck like that is something I can do without.

BTW, why did so many people get killed? I was half asleep during the documentary. Was it a delayed chain reaction? Did people assume the worst was over, went to help, then got blown up?

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: RY62

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: shinerburke
A rocket under an F4-Phantom on the deck misfired. McCain just happened to be lucky enough to be sitting in the aircraft that the misfired rocket struck.

What luck. Then after that he gets shot down and gets a warm bed at the Hanoi Hilton.

In case you missed the memo from the Obamessiah:

"For those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country ? no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary," Obama said. "And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides."

No one made this about politics until you brought it up. I just mentioned that the guy has bad luck.

 

[Ldir]

Originally posted by: Dari
No one made this about politics until you brought it up. I just mentioned that the guy has bad luck.

Maybe you should have put it in Off Topic then. I am for Obama. I do not think this accident is relevant to 2008. I hope no Obama supporters are stupid enough to try to use it against McCain because it will backfire.

 

[Craig234]

It's funny, a first reaction is to ask, was he at fault? If so, wow, what a scandal, that is really a problem for him wanting to be president...

But when you think about it, if he had been at fault, had made a big mistake, it still really would have no real impact on his ability to be president now.

Just another example of the irrational processes in selecting a leader.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: Ldir

Originally posted by: Dari
No one made this about politics until you brought it up. I just mentioned that the guy has bad luck.

Maybe you should have put it in Off Topic then. I am for Obama. I do not think this accident is relevant to 2008. I hope no Obama supporters are stupid enough to try to use it against McCain because it will backfire.

This is about John McCain, a politician. iirc, this was major news 41 years ago. It belongs here. If people want to make certain subjects taboo in certain years, that's their prerogative, not mine. If you don't like it or believe in self-censorship, see your way out of the thread.

 

[shiner]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: shinerburke

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: shinerburke
A rocket under an F4-Phantom on the deck misfired. McCain just happened to be lucky enough to be sitting in the aircraft that the misfired rocket struck.

What luck. Then after that he gets shot down and gets a warm bed at the Hanoi Hilton.

At least he managed to get out of his aircraft, an A-4 Skyhawk if memory serves me, before a bomb underneath it exploded due to the fire.

I know. He made it out alive, which was good. But damn, luck like that is something I can do without.

BTW, why did so many people get killed? I was half asleep during the documentary. Was it a delayed chain reaction? Did people assume the worst was over, went to help, then got blown up?

Jet fuel + fire + exploding aircraft + exploding ordnance = pretty bad day.

 

[Lemon law]

Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

What is more relevant, perhaps, are the Vietnamese who were burned to death by the bombs McCain and the crew dropped, for no good reason.

That's an issue that reflects on the judgement of McCain, though he's hardly alone in having made the decision to go kill Vietnamese people who had not harmed them.

And of course, John Kerry and Al Gore made the same decision, even if Kerry did change his view and work hard against the war.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

What is more relevant, perhaps, are the Vietnamese who were burned to death by the bombs McCain and the crew dropped, for no good reason.

That's an issue that reflects on the judgement of McCain, though he's hardly alone in having made the decision to go kill Vietnamese people who had not harmed them.

And of course, John Kerry and Al Gore made the same decision, even if Kerry did change his view and work hard against the war.

Go tell Johnson.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

What is more relevant, perhaps, are the Vietnamese who were burned to death by the bombs McCain and the crew dropped, for no good reason.

That's an issue that reflects on the judgement of McCain, though he's hardly alone in having made the decision to go kill Vietnamese people who had not harmed them.

And of course, John Kerry and Al Gore made the same decision, even if Kerry did change his view and work hard against the war.

One obeys legal orders. His job was to deliver ordance on people that were supporting the delivering of ordance on out troops.

NVA & VC & allies were at war with the SVA and their allies. The US held back on certain aspects and the NVA allies held back.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

What is more relevant, perhaps, are the Vietnamese who were burned to death by the bombs McCain and the crew dropped, for no good reason.

That's an issue that reflects on the judgement of McCain, though he's hardly alone in having made the decision to go kill Vietnamese people who had not harmed them.

And of course, John Kerry and Al Gore made the same decision, even if Kerry did change his view and work hard against the war.

Dude I was totally against the war back then but I can tell you that if I was in their position I would have smoked the first Viet that looked at me cross eyed. You gotta do what you need to survive in time of war whether you are for it or not.

 

[StageLeft]

This was really so long ago I doubt it impacts his ability to lead as president at all or is really representative of him in any way.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: Ldir

Originally posted by: Dari
No one made this about politics until you brought it up. I just mentioned that the guy has bad luck.

Maybe you should have put it in Off Topic then. I am for Obama. I do not think this accident is relevant to 2008. I hope no Obama supporters are stupid enough to try to use it against McCain because it will backfire.

This is about John McCain, a politician. iirc, this was major news 41 years ago. It belongs here. If people want to make certain subjects taboo in certain years, that's their prerogative, not mine. If you don't like it or believe in self-censorship, see your way out of the thread.

Despite where it belongs, Ldir is correct in the sense that it really shouldn't be relevant to anyone's voting decision if they are voting responsibly. Now, simply bringing it up here to talk about is a different story.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

What is more relevant, perhaps, are the Vietnamese who were burned to death by the bombs McCain and the crew dropped, for no good reason.

That's an issue that reflects on the judgement of McCain, though he's hardly alone in having made the decision to go kill Vietnamese people who had not harmed them.

And of course, John Kerry and Al Gore made the same decision, even if Kerry did change his view and work hard against the war.

Dude I was totally against the war back then but I can tell you that if I was in their position I would have smoked the first Viet that looked at me cross eyed. You gotta do what you need to survive in time of war whether you are for it or not.

I'm referring to their decision to go to the war at all - I agree, once there, they had little choice but to participate.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

What is more relevant, perhaps, are the Vietnamese who were burned to death by the bombs McCain and the crew dropped, for no good reason.

That's an issue that reflects on the judgement of McCain, though he's hardly alone in having made the decision to go kill Vietnamese people who had not harmed them.

And of course, John Kerry and Al Gore made the same decision, even if Kerry did change his view and work hard against the war.

Dude I was totally against the war back then but I can tell you that if I was in their position I would have smoked the first Viet that looked at me cross eyed. You gotta do what you need to survive in time of war whether you are for it or not.

I'm referring to their decision to go to the war at all - I agree, once there, they had little choice but to participate.

Well it wasn't so obvious at first that the war was so wrong. We had years of indoctrination about how bad the Communists were and how if they weren't stopped there would be a domino effect. We were still in the Korean War mindset. It wasn't until about 67 that Americans started to wise up to the bullshit that was being fed us by our own government and it took some longer than others.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

What is more relevant, perhaps, are the Vietnamese who were burned to death by the bombs McCain and the crew dropped, for no good reason.

That's an issue that reflects on the judgement of McCain, though he's hardly alone in having made the decision to go kill Vietnamese people who had not harmed them.

And of course, John Kerry and Al Gore made the same decision, even if Kerry did change his view and work hard against the war.

Dude I was totally against the war back then but I can tell you that if I was in their position I would have smoked the first Viet that looked at me cross eyed. You gotta do what you need to survive in time of war whether you are for it or not.

I'm referring to their decision to go to the war at all - I agree, once there, they had little choice but to participate.

Are you talking aboiut the decision to go to war as a person or as a country?

The country was led into war by Ike, JFK & LBJ. Nixon finally got us out of it.

McCain was an officer before VN - his orders wer cut by the Pentagon, not by himself.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

What is more relevant, perhaps, are the Vietnamese who were burned to death by the bombs McCain and the crew dropped, for no good reason.

That's an issue that reflects on the judgement of McCain, though he's hardly alone in having made the decision to go kill Vietnamese people who had not harmed them.

And of course, John Kerry and Al Gore made the same decision, even if Kerry did change his view and work hard against the war.

One obeys legal orders. His job was to deliver ordance on people that were supporting the delivering of ordance on out troops.

NVA & VC & allies were at war with the SVA and their allies. The US held back on certain aspects and the NVA allies held back.

Really? I don't obey lawful orders to kill people I think it's immoral to kill. Put me in prison for it.

I understand pretty well not to expect them to have made a better choice. I thought about a military academy at a young age too. You're an idiot at that age for the most part IMO.

The fact that I see these issues as very important, is a reason why I spend the time to post about them. Influencing armchair generals can affect real people on war issues.

You say the VC were at war with us. That's a pretty misleading way to phrase it, with the more accurate way being *we* chose war with the VC, who defended themselves.

The whole split between North and South Vietnam was itself nothing but a political device created by the west a few years before to try to maintain our colonial role there.

The bottom line is as I said that our own wrong desire for dominance and lack of understandiing of them and domestic politics led to our killing 2 million people wrongly.

I think we have some responsibility to learn from the mistake and not repeat it. Of all people, Robert McNamara agrees and has made an effort to spread lessons from it.

 

[lupi]

Besides the obvious fact that Mccains prescence during the incident is irrelevant to what happened, could you try at least a little harder to disguise your troll threads.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Some other pilot's screw up is not McCain's fault. End if story. It has nothing good or bad about to say about McCain and hence should be a non issue in 2008. In terms of luck, McCain was unlucky enough to fall victim to the accident and lucky enough to survive it. Sadly more than can be said of the 150 Forrestal crewman who perished in the resulting fire and the explosion of the bomb on McCain's plane.

What is more relevant, perhaps, are the Vietnamese who were burned to death by the bombs McCain and the crew dropped, for no good reason.

That's an issue that reflects on the judgement of McCain, though he's hardly alone in having made the decision to go kill Vietnamese people who had not harmed them.

And of course, John Kerry and Al Gore made the same decision, even if Kerry did change his view and work hard against the war.

Dude I was totally against the war back then but I can tell you that if I was in their position I would have smoked the first Viet that looked at me cross eyed. You gotta do what you need to survive in time of war whether you are for it or not.

I'm referring to their decision to go to the war at all - I agree, once there, they had little choice but to participate.

Well it wasn't so obvious at first that the war was so wrong. We had years of indoctrination about how bad the Communists were and how if they weren't stopped there would be a domino effect. We were still in the Korean War mindset. It wasn't until about 67 that Americans started to wise up to the bullshit that was being fed us by our own government and it took some longer than others.

I agree with your comments completely. There were some who saw the problems from the beginning (to a large extent including JFK), but it was far more common to see the war the way you describe, and I suspect I would have made the same mistake. RFK, as well, admitted he'd been wrong earlier.

The point for me is to learn from the mistake - to understand how Korea influenced the public opinion, to understand how everyone from the average citizen to our top leaders could be so wrong, to mistake their desire for freedom for a threat to us, to think we were justified in what was mass murder, to understand how the whole 'fear of communism', which had some legitimacy, was also so wrong as to make people so wrong on this, and to try to prevent it from happening again.

The reasons you give are one reason I give a lot of credit to John Kerry for his changing his view and showing such courage to fight against the war later.

It's not so much that I mean to say McCain made an easily noticable mistake, as to say that he did make an easy to make mistake that we largely have yet to learn from.