John McCain’s ‘vivacious and rebellious’ 106-year-old mother is expected to attend her son’s funeral
- Roberta McCain, John McCain’s 106-year-old mother, will attend his memorial
- John McCain, a Vietnam prisoner of war, congressman and senator, died aged 81
- Her ‘vivaciousness is a force of nature’ the senator said of his mother in last book
- He will be buried on Hospital Hill at the US Naval Academy Cemetery in Maryland
John McCain’s ‘vivacious and rebellious’ 106-year-old mother, Roberta, is expected to attend memorial services in Washington and his burial in Maryland later this week.
Roberta McCain, the wife of a Navy admiral and mother of a Navy captain, once said the middle child she called ‘Johnny’ liked to use her as an example of ‘what he hopes his lifespan will be’.
But she now mourns her son, with whom she shared many similarities, including determination and a rebellious streak that the senator said he was ‘grateful to her for the strengths she taught me by example’.
Her ‘vivaciousness is a force of nature’, he wrote in his final book published this year.
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John McCain’s 106-year-old mother, Roberta, (pictured) is expected to attend memorial services in Washington and his burial in Maryland later this week
John S. McCain III (left) and his parents, Rear Admiral John S. McCain Junior (right) and Roberta Wright McCain (center) stand in front of a plaque with an image of his grandfather, Adm. John S. McCain
Cindy McCain, wife of John McCain, lays her head on his casket during a memorial service in Arizona. John McCain died of brain cancer last Saturday at his home in Arizona
The Vietnam prisoner of war, congressman, senator and two-time presidential candidate died of brain cancer last Saturday at his home in Arizona.
He was 81.
Roberta was only 20 and still in college when she eloped to Tijuana, Mexico, in January 1933 with a young sailor named John S. McCain Junior.
The couple had three children — Jean, John and Joseph — within a decade.
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The family lived in Hawaii, the Panama Canal Zone — where the senator was born in 1936 — Connecticut and Virginia.
Roberta raised the children while her husband was away with the Navy and reportedly loved Navy life.
‘To me, the Navy epitomizes everything that’s good in America,’ she told C-SPAN in 2008 during the presidential contest John McCain lost to Barack Obama.
Senator John McCain died on Saturday at the age of 81. The Vietnam prisoner of war (pictured in uniform, right) will be memorialized at a service in Phoenix on Thursday before his remains are taken to Washington D.C
Roberta McCain (second from left) raised John McCain (second from right) with her two other children while her husband was away with the Navy and reportedly loved Navy life
It was in London when the couple were getting ready to attend a dinner at Iran’s embassy that Roberta’s phone rang with the news that two planes had been shot down and none of the pilots had ejected.
When she later learned her son was alive and had become a prisoner of war she said it was ‘the best news I ever had in my life.’
At the time of his death, the U.S flag could be seen flying at half mast above the White House.
The late senator will be memorialized at a service in Phoenix on Thursday before his remains are taken to Washington D.C. On Friday, there will be a ceremony for him at the U.S. Capitol building, where he will lie in state.
On Saturday will be his funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. and he will be buried Sunday on Hospital Hill at Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland.
McCain had been a rare and outspoken Republican critic of Trump, accusing him of ‘naivete,’ ‘egotism’ and of sympathizing with autocrats.
He made a decisive vote last year that killed Republican attempts to repeal Barack Obama’s health care reforms, and Trump never forgave him.
The sharp-tongued McCain had disagreements with many fellow politicians — including inside his own camp — but the Republican stalwart was widely recognized for his deep integrity, and condolences came swift from the highest reaches of American politics.
He would have celebrated his 82nd birthday on Wednesday.
The nine moments that made McCain
PRISONER OF WAR, CELEBRITY
McCain, became a public figure at age 31 when his bed-bound image was broadcast from North Vietnam in 1967. The North Vietnamese had figured out that he was the son and grandson of famous American military men — a ‘crown prince,’ they called him. He was offered an early release, but refused. McCain’s captors beat him until he confessed, an episode that first led to shame — and then discovery. McCain has written that that’s when he learned to trust not just his legacy but his own judgment — and his resilience. Less than a decade after his March 1973 release, McCain was elected to the House as a Republican from Arizona. In 1986, voters there sent him to the Senate.
THE KEATING FIVE
He called it ‘my asterisk’ and the worst mistake of his life. At issue was a pair of 1987 meetings between McCain, four other senators and regulators to get the government to back off a key campaign donor. Charles Keating Jr. wanted McCain and Democratic Sens. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, John Glenn of Ohio and Don Riegle of Michigan to get government auditors to stop pressing Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. All five denied improper conduct. McCain was cleared of all charges but found to have exercised ‘poor judgment.’ ‘His honor was being questioned and that’s nothing that he takes lightly,’ said Mark Salter, McCain’s biographer and co-author of his new memoir, ‘The Restless Wave.’
THE SENATE
McCain became his party’s leading voice on matters of war, national security and veterans – and eventually became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He worked with a Democrat to rewrite the nation’s campaign finance laws. He voted for the Iraq War and supported the 2007 surge of forces there even as his own sons served or prepared to serve. But there was one thing that wasn’t as widely known about him: McCain, owner of a ranch in Arizona that is in the flight path of 500 species of migratory birds, became concerned about the environment. ‘People associate John with defense and national security, as well they should. But he also had a great concern for and love of the environment,’ said Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who traveled to the ends of the earth with McCain — to the Arctic Circle in 2004 and Antarctica two years later — on fact-finding missions related to climate change. Back on McCain’s Arizona ranch, the senator gave Collins an extensive nature tour of the property. ‘I particularly remember his love for the birds,’ Collins said. ‘He loved the birds.’
TOWN HALLS, STRAIGHT TALK
McCain in the 2000 election did something new: He toured New Hampshire on a bus laden with doughnuts and reporters that stopped at ‘town hall’ meetings where voters were invited to exchange views with the candidate. The bus was called the ‘Straight Talk Express,’ and that’s what he promised to deliver at the town halls. The whole thing was messy, unscripted and often hilarious. And ultimately the events re-introduced McCain to voters as a candid and authentic, just a year after President Bill Clinton was acquitted of lying to Congress and obstruction. In New Hampshire that year, McCain defeated George W. Bush in an 18-point blowout, only to be pushed out of the race in South Carolina. But the town halls remained a fond McCain memory. ‘The town halls were festivals of politics,’ Salter said. ‘They were so authentic and open and honest.’
‘NO MA’AM’
McCain, in 2008 making his second run for president, quickly intervened when a woman in Lakeville, Minnesota, stood at a town hall event and began to make disparaging remarks about Democratic presidential nominee and then-Sen. Barack Obama. ‘He’s an Arab,’ she said, implying he was not an American. ‘No ma’am,’ McCain said, taking the microphone from her. ‘He’s a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about. He’s not.’ It was a defining moment for McCain as a leader, a reflection of his thinking that partisans should disagree without demonizing each other. But it reflected McCain’s reckoning with the fear pervading his party of Obama, who would go on to become the nation’s first black president.
CANCER
McCain last year was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the same aggressive cancer that had felled his friend, Sen Edward Kennedy, in 2009. Friends and family say he understood the gravity of the diagnosis — but quickly turned to the speech he wanted to give on the Senate floor urging his colleagues to shed the partisanship that had produced gridlock. Face scarred and bruised from surgery, he pounded the lectern. Some of the sternest members of the Senate hugged him, tears in their eyes. ‘Of all of the things that have happened in this man’s life, of all of the times that his life could have ended in the ways it could have ended, this (cancer) is by far one of the least threats to him and that’s kind of how he views it,’ his son, Jack McCain, told the Arizona Republic in January.
HEALTH CARE VOTE
Republicans, driven by Trump, were one vote away from advancing a repeal of Obama’s health care law. Then McCain, scarred from brain surgery, swooped into the Senate chamber and, facing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, dramatically held up his hand. The thumb flicked down. Gasps could be heard throughout the staid chamber. McConnell stood motionless, arms crossed. Trump’s campaign promise — and the premiere item on his agenda — was dead.
TRUMP
McCain tangled with Trump, who never served in the military, for years. As a candidate, Trump in 2016 claimed the decorated McCain is only considered a war hero because he had been captured. ‘He’s not a war hero,’ Trump said at an event in Iowa. ‘I like people who weren’t captured.’ Shortly before Election Day in 2016, McCain said he’s rather cast his vote for another Republican, someone who’s ‘qualified to be president.’ Trump fumed, without using McCain’s name, that the senator is the only reason the Affordable Care Act stands. McCain responded: ‘I have faced tougher adversaries.’
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