John McCain's maternal grandfather, Archibald Wright (1875–1971),[17] was a Mississippi native who migrated to Muskogee, Oklahoma, in his twenties, ran afoul of the law with several gambling and bootlegging charges,[17] then became a strong-willed wildcatter who prospered on land deals during the early statehood years and struck oil in the Southwest.

[50] Each year he was given over a hundred demerits – earning him membership in the "Century Club"[22] – for offenses such as shoes not being shined, formation faults, room in disorder, and talking out of place.

[59][61] Despite his low standing, McCain was popular and a leader among his fellow midshipmen, in what writer Robert Timberg, in his acclaimed 1995 work The Nightingale's Song, called a "manic, intuitive, highly idiosyncratic way".

[38] A June 1957 training cruise aboard the destroyer USS Hunt[63] found McCain showing good skills at the conn,[64] and the destination stop in Rio de Janeiro led to a dream-like romance with Brazilian fashion model and ballerina Maria Gracinda that persisted through a Christmastime reunion.

[48] Despite his difficulties, McCain later wrote that he never defamed the more compelling traditions of the Academy – courage, resilience, honor, and sacrifice for one's country – and he never wavered in his desire to show his father and family that he was of the same mettle as his naval forebears.

[68] McCain realized later that the Academy had taught him that "to sustain my self-respect for a lifetime it would be necessary for me to have the honor of serving something greater than my self-interest", a lesson that he would need to carry him through a "desperate and uncertain" time a decade later.

[69][70] He earned a reputation as a party man, as he drove a Corvette, dated an exotic dancer named "Marie the Flame of Florida", spent all his free time on the beach or in a Bachelor Officer Quarters room turned bar and friendly gambling den, and, as he later said, "generally misused my good health and youth".

[38] During a March 1960 practice run in Texas, he lost track of his altitude and speed, and his single-seat, single-engine, piston-driven AD-6 Skyraider crashed into Corpus Christi Bay and sank to the bottom.

[72] On board for Enterprise's maiden voyage in January 1962, McCain gained visibility with the captain and shipboard publicity that fellow sailors and aviators attributed to his famous last name.

"[87][88] In November 1965, he had his third accident when apparent engine failure in his T-2 Buckeye trainer jet over the Eastern Shore of Virginia led to his ejecting safely before his plane crashed.

[27] On July 25, 1967, Forrestal reached Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin[92] and joined Operation Rolling Thunder, the 1965–68 air interdiction and strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

[102] He went to help another pilot trying to escape the fire when the first bomb exploded; McCain was thrown backwards ten feet (three meters)[103] and suffered minor wounds when struck in the legs and chest by fragments.

[92][106][107] In Saigon a day after the conflagration, McCain praised the heroism of enlisted men who gave their lives trying to save the pilots on deck,[103] and told The New York Times reporter R. W. Apple Jr., "It's a difficult thing to say.

[111] After taking some leave in Europe and back home in Orange Park, Florida,[112] McCain joined Oriskany on September 30, 1967,[111] for a tour he expected would finish early the next summer.

[115] McCain would be awarded a Navy Commendation Medal for leading his air section through heavy enemy fire during an October 18 raid on the Lac Trai shipyard in Haiphong.

[117] On October 26, 1967, McCain was flying his twenty-third mission, part of a twenty-plane strike force against the Yen Phu thermal power plant in central Hanoi[119][120] that previously had almost always been off-limits to U.S. raids due to the possibility of collateral damage.

[146] Now having lost fifty pounds (twenty-three kilograms), in a chest cast, covered in grime and eyes full of fever, and with his hair turned white,[119] in early December 1967 McCain was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on the outskirts of Hanoi nicknamed "the Plantation".

[119][157] McCain's refusal to be released was remarked upon by North Vietnamese senior negotiator Lê Đức Thọ to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman, during the ongoing Paris Peace Talks.

[171] On Christmas Eve 1968, a church service for the POWs was staged for photographers and film cameras; McCain defied North Vietnamese instructions to be quiet, speaking out details of his treatment then shouting "Fu-u-u-u-ck you, you son of a bitch!"

[172] McCain refused to meet with various anti-Vietnam War peace groups coming to Hanoi,[173] such as those led by David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, and Rennie Davis, not wanting to give either them or the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory based on his connection to his father.

[126] McCain was still badly hobbled by his injuries, earning the nickname "Crip" among the other POWs,[174][175] but despite his physical condition, continued beatings and isolation, he was one of the key players in the Plantation's resistance efforts.

"[186] The POWs issued an edict forbidding any further such interviews,[185] and despite pressure from his captors, McCain subsequently refused to see any anti-war groups or journalists sympathetic to the North Vietnamese regime.

[126] Unknown to them, during each year that Jack McCain was CINCPAC he paid a Christmastime visit to the American troops in South Vietnam serving closest to the DMZ; he would stand alone and look north, to be as close to his son as he could get.

[187] By 1971, some 30–50 percent of the POWs had become disillusioned about the war, both because of the apparent lack of military progress and what they heard of the growing anti-war movement in the U.S., and some of them were less reluctant to make propaganda statements for the North Vietnamese.

Although its explosions lit the night sky and shook the walls of the camp, scaring some of the newer POWs,[193] most saw it as a forceful measure to compel North Vietnam to finally come to terms.

[197] She had suffered her own crippling, near-death ordeal during his captivity, due to an automobile accident in December 1969 that left her hospitalized for six months and facing twenty-three operations and ongoing physical therapy.

[81] As a returned POW, McCain became a celebrity of sorts: The New York Times ran a story and front-page photo of him getting off the plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines;[195][199] he authored a thirteen-page cover story describing his ordeal and his support for the Nixon administration's handling of the war in U.S. News & World Report;[126] he participated in parades in Orange Park and elsewhere and made personal appearances before groups, where he showed strong speaking skills;[197][200] and he was given the key to the city of Jacksonville, Florida.

[208] McCain had admired Ronald Reagan while in captivity and afterwards, believing him to be a man who saw honor in Vietnam service and a potential leader who would not lead the nation into a war it was unwilling to win.

[216] (The particular operation that had led to his downing, Rolling Thunder, had been stopped in 1968, and while it had caused the North Vietnamese some logistical and resource difficulties, it had not succeeded in altering any of the fundamental equations involved in eventually determining the war's outcome.

[246] On March 27, 1981, McCain attended his father's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, wearing his uniform for the last time before signing his discharge papers, and later that day flew to Phoenix with his wife Cindy to begin his new life.