John Sidney McCain III was born on August 29, 1936. He is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and presidential nominee of the Republican Party in the 2008 presidential election. Before entering politics, he was a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers.

In 1967, while McCain was on his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam, his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi. He suffered from serious injuries, was captured as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese and was held for five and a half years, experiencing episodes of torture and refusing an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer. He was finally released from captivity on March 14, 1973.