John McCain

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and now a Presidental nominee for the 2008 Election.

McCain graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 becoming a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was nearly killed in 1967 at the USS Forrestal fire. Later that year while on a bombing mission over North Vietnam, he was shot down, badly injured, and captured as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese. He was held from 1967 to 1973, experiencing episodes of torture and refusing an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer; his war wounds would leave him with lifelong physical limitations.

He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981, moved to Arizona, and entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-elections in 1992, 1998, and 2004.