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Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir (Paperback)
by John McCain, Mark Salter
| Category:
Military, American society, American politics, Memoir |
| Market price: ¥ 110.00
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¥ 98.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
An inspiring American story, this book is a stirring account of perseverance and family values that is ultimately a tribute to the will of humanity to prevail. |
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Author: John McCain, Mark Salter
Publisher: Harper
Pub. in: September, 2008
ISBN: 0061734950
Pages: 368
Measurements: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA01563
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0061734953
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- Awards & Credential -
New York Times bestseller. |
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- MSL Picks -
Faith of My Fathers is the story of three men - the grandfather and father of John McCain, who created a legacy of a life in service for McCain (the third man) to follow. It is their legacies that led the young John McCain to the Naval Academy and to a career in the Navy. Yet the legacy of these two men is wrapped up in morals, values and patriotism - exactly what makes John McCain the great leader that he is.
This book is divided into three sections. It begins with the stories of McCain's grandfather, an admiral in the Navy who fought in WWII. His grandfather is depicted as a true seaman, complete with the language. He then goes on to talk about his father, another Navy admiral, who went on to serve as commander of the Pacific and entire naval force. Greatly influenced by his grandfather and father, McCain received a commission in the Navy and sought to distinguish himself through serving the United States in war. Unfortunately, that war happened to be Vietnam.
The third section of the book deals with McCain's experiences at the Naval Academy and his time as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. McCain recognizes that because of his 'celebrity' status (due to his father's top position), he wasn't mistreated as severely as other prisoners. His accounts of the heroism of these men are extraordinary; the pain they had to endure and the pain that broke them. POWs were forced to make fake confessions, to listen to their former comrades condemn them in public, and to pretend that they were being treated humanely for the world audience.
Throughout his political career, McCain has been known as a POW of Vietnam, yet this is not how he distinguishes himself. He took what he learned from his time as a prisoner and set about living his life, grateful for his experiences. At times the book fluctuates in time periods, which can get rather confusing. Besides the stories of his grandfather and father, and his time as a POW, McCain and co-author Mark Salter, weave in the world events - what went wrong in Vietnam, what could have gone right. McCain lets his opinion be known, but recognizes that terrible responsibility that comes in waging war. He has proven himself to be a hero worthy of admiration and the responsibility of leadership.
(From quoting R. Chaffey, USA)
Target readers:
Readers interested in American military history, American politics and biographies and memoirs.
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After a career in the U.S. Navy and two terms as a U.S. representative (1982-1986), John McCain was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 and re-elected in 1992 and 1998. He was a Republican candidate in the 2000 presidential campaign. Mark Salter has worked on Senator McCain's staff for eleven years, and has been his administrative assistant since 1993.
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From Publisher
John McCain's grandfather was rail-thin, a gaunt, hawk-faced man known as Slew by his fellow officers and affectionately as Popeye by the sailors who served under him. McCain Sr. played the horses, drank bourbon and water, and rolled his own cigarettes with one hand. More significantly, he was one of the navy's greatest commanders, and led the aircraft carrier of the Third Fleet in key battles during World War II.
John McCain's father fallowed a similar path, one equally distinguished by heroic service in the navy as a submarine commander during World War II. McCain Jr. was a slightly built man, but, like his father, he earned the respect and affection of his men. He, too, rose to the rank of four-star admiral, making the McCains the first family in American history to achieve that distinction. McCain Jr.'s final assignment was commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific during the Vietnam War.
It was in the Vietnam War that John McCain III faced the most difficult challenge of his life. A naval officer, he was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and seriously injured. When Vietnamese millitary officers realized he was the son of the top commande, they offered McCain early release in an effort to embarass 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.
This memoir is the story of what McCain learned from his grandfather and father, and how their example enabled him to endure these hard years. It is a story of three imperfect men who faced adversity and emerged with their honor intact. Ultimately, Faith of My Father is a story of fathers and sons, what they give each other and what endures.
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Fifth from the Bottom
I am sure my disdainful contemporaries and disapproving instructors believed I would become a thoroughly disreputable upperclassman were I somehow to escape expulsion during my plebe year. Most of the time, my behavior only confirmed their low regard for me. For a moment, though, I came close to confounding their expectations. That moment began when I boarded the USS Hunt to begin my first-class cruise to Rio de Janeiro in June of 1957.
The Hunt was an old destroyer. It had seen better days. It seemed to me a barely floating rust bucket that should have been scrapped years before, unfit even for mothballing. But I was ignorant, a sailor's son though I was, and I overlooked the old ship's grace and sea-worthiness. I assumed the Hunt was suitable only for the mean task of giving lowly midshipmen a rustic experience of life at sea. I was wrong.
We lived in cramped quarters in the aft of the ship. We kept the hatch open to cool our quarters with the breeze blowing off the Chesapeake Bay. Once the Hunt left the bay and entered the Atlantic, the seas grew heavier and seawater washed in through the hatch. We lived in the pooled water for several days. The rough seas sent a good number of us running for the lee side to vomit. We had restricted water hours on the cruise, which meant there was only enough water to allow us to drink from the ship's water fountains during a three-hour period every day. We took saltwater showers.
We spent a third of the cruise in the engineering plant, a grim place that seemed, to the untrained eye, a disgrace. The boilers blew scorching hot air on us while we spent long hours in misery learning the mysteries of the ship's mechanics. That the ship sailed at all seemed to us a great testament to the mechanic's mates' mastery of improvisation. It was a hell of a vessel to go to sea in for the first time.
We spent another third of the cruise learning ship's navigation, and the last third on the bridge learning how to command a ship at sea.
The skipper was Lieutenant Commander Eugene Ferrell. He seemed to accord the Hunt affection far out of proportion to her virtues. More surprisingly, he seemed to have some affection for me. He expressed it in eccentric ways, but I sensed his respect for me was greater than I had lately been accustomed to receiving from officers. I appreciated it, and I liked him a lot.
I spent much of the cruise on the bridge, where the skipper would order me to take the conn. There is a real mental challenge to running a ship of that size, and I had little practical experience in the job. But I truly enjoyed it. I made more than a few mistakes, and every time I screwed up, the skipper would explode, letting loose an impressive blast of profane derision.
"Dammit, McCain, you useless bastard. Give up the conn right now. Get the hell off my bridge. I mean it, goddammit. I won't have a worthless s.o.b. at the helm of my ship. You've really screwed up this time, McCain. Get the hell out of here!"
As I began to skulk off the bridge, he would call me back. "Hold on a second. Come on back here, mister. Get over here and take the conn." And then he would begin, more calmly, to explain what I had done wrong and how the task was done properly. We would go along pleasantly until I committed my next unpardonable error, when he would unleash another string of salty oaths in despair over my unfitness for the service, only to beckon me back for a last chance to prove myself worthy of his fine ship.
It was a wonderful time. I enjoyed the whole experience. As I detected in Ferrell's outbursts his sense that I showed some promise, I worked hard not to disappoint him, and I learned the job passably well. I was rarely off his bridge for much of the cruise. No other midshipman on the Hunt was so privileged.
Inspired by the experience, I began to consider becoming an officer in the surface Navy, with the goal of someday commanding a destroyer, instead of following my grandfather into naval aviation. I told Ferrell of my intentions, and he seemed pleased. Fine gentleman that he is, he never rebuked me after I abandoned my briefly held aspirations for a destroyer command and returned to my original plan to become an aviator. Many years later, he wrote me, and recalled a chance encounter we had sometime in the early sixties. "I was surprised but pleased to see that you were wearing two stripes and a pair of gold wings. Your grandfather would have been very proud of you."
Years later, while serving as a flight instructor in Meridian, Mississippi, I realized that I had adopted, unintentionally, Lieutenant Commander Ferrell's idiosyncratic instruction technique. I took pride in the fact.
When a Navy ship at sea needs to refuel or take on supplies and mail, it must come alongside and tie up to a refueling or replenishing ship while both vessels are under way. The maneuver is difficult to execute even in the calmest seas. Most skippers attempt it cautiously, bringing their ship alongside the approaching vessel very slowly.
But the most experienced ship handlers are bolder, and pride themselves on their more daring form. They come alongside at two-thirds or full speed, much faster than the other ship. At precisely the right moment they throw the engines in reverse, and then ahead again at one-third speed. It's a spectacular thing to see when it's done right. An approximate image of the maneuver is a car traveling at sixty miles an hour as it approaches a parallel parking space; the driver slams on the brakes and pulls cleanly, without an inch to spare, into the spot.
Eugene Ferrell was a gifted ship handler, and he never considered coming alongside another ship in any other fashion, unless, of course, a green midshipman had the conn. I had watched him perform the task several times, and had admired his serene composure as he confidently gave the orders that brought the rushing Hunt abruptly but gracefully into place, moving at exactly the same speed as her sister ship. A seaman would fire a gun that shot a line to our bow. Soon the two ships, several lines now holding them in harness, would sail the ocean together for a time, never touching, but in perfect unison. It was a grand sight to behold.
One beautiful afternoon, the flagship of the destroyer division to which the Hunt was attached, flying the ensign of the commanding admiral, approached us for the purpose of replenishing the Hunt's depleted stores. Lieutenant Commander Ferrell gave me the conn, and without a trace of apprehension, bade me bring her alongside the admiral's flagship.
Ferrell told me to bring her up slowly, but offered no rebuke when I gave the order "All engines ahead two-thirds." At precisely the right moment, I ordered, "All engines back full." A few moments later, again well timed, I ordered, "All engines ahead one-third." Thrillingly and to my great relief, the Hunt slipped into place so gracefully that any observer would have thought the skipper himself, master ship handler that he was, had the conn.
Ferrell was proud of me, and I was much indebted to him. He had given me his trust, and I had had the good fortune to avoid letting him down. After the two ships were tied up, he sent a message to the admiral. "Midshipman McCain has the conn." The impressed admiral sent a message to the Superintendent of the Naval Academy, informing him of my accomplishment.
Many years later I learned that Ferrell had been a student and admirer of my father's. Perhaps that explains his kindness toward me. Whatever the reason for the care he took with me, I was grateful for it. His confidence in me gave me more confidence in myself, and greater assurance that I belonged at sea than I had ever experienced in the rigid, disapproving world of the Academy. Eugene Ferrell was the man who taught me the craft of my father and grandfather. He gave me cause to love the work that they had loved. Debts such as that you incur for life. I sailed for Rio de Janeiro a more contented young man than I had ever been before.
Liberty in Rio. My imagination could not have embellished the good time we made of our nine days in port, indulging in the vices sailors are infamous for, as if we had been at sea for months instead of weeks. After some excessive drinking, nightclubbing, and little or no sleep, I had exhausted my appetite for the joys of liberty and intended to return to ship. Chuck Larson persuaded me to accompany him to a party at a grand house on Sugarloaf Mountain. There I met and began a romance with a Brazilian fashion model, and gloried in the envy of my friends.
We danced on the terrace overlooking the bay until one o'clock in the morning, when I felt her cheek was moist.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"I'll never see you again," she replied.
I told her that we would remain in town for eight more days, and that I would gladly spend as much time in her company as she would grant me. But she rebutted my every assurance with "No, I can never see you again."
"Are you engaged?"
"No."
"Look, I'm going to be down at the gate of the shipyard at
one o'clock tomorrow afternoon. I'll be there, and I want you to be
there, too."
She said nothing in reply, and an hour later she left the party with her aunt, who served as her constant companion and chaperone.
The next afternoon, I left the ship at about twelve-thirty and waited for her at the place I had designated. An hour passed, and she had not arrived. Another hour and still she had not appeared. An hour after that, I forlornly prepared to abandon all hope. Just as I was preparing to return to the ship in a state of deep despondency, she pulled up in a Mercedes with gull-wing doors. She honked the horn, and I jumped in, ecstatic... |
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Publishers Weekly (MSL quote), USA
<2008-11-16 00:00>
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"Aeach 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. |
Kirkus Review (MSL quote), USA
<2008-11-16 00:00>
A candid, moving, and entertaining memoir by the US senator from Arizona and potential presidential candidate. Aided by Salter, his legislative assistant since 1989, McCain writes of growing up with his sister and brother as navy "brats, constantly moving from school to school as their devoted mother filled in the educational cracks at home. The boy was strongly influenced by his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals and war heroes, honest, brave, and loyal men with reassuringly normal human imperfections. An individualist to the core and self-described hell-raiser, McCain chafed under the severe discipline of the US Naval Academy, constantly challenging petty rules he considered unnecessary in the making of an officer. He graduated near the bottom of his class despite being outstanding in history and literature. Flying off the carrier Oriskany in the Vietnam War, he shared the poor regard fellow pilots had for the civilian managers of the war ("complete idiots'' in his judgment), who refused to allow airmen to bomb Russian SAM missile sites that were causing heavy US pilot and plane losses. Shot down and captured near Hanoi, McCain suffered more than five years of beatings and torture. Feisty as ever, the POW made it worse for himself by resisting his captors as much as he could, holding onto the steely resolve of his role models, the faith of his fathers. He still regrets his single breakdown under severe pain, but McCain has managed to prevent bad memories of war from destroying his present well-being; he feels that Vietnam matured him, strengthened his confidence, and forced him to honestly look at his failuresin youth as well as wartimewhile seeing opportunities for redemption. 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. |
USA Today, USA
<2008-11-16 00:00>
Hard to top and impossible to read without being moved. |
Newsweek, USA
<2008-11-16 00:00>
McCain's character has withstood tests the average politician can only imagine... He may be the last of his kind.
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