Faith of My Fathers

Title: Faith of My Fathers - A Family Memoir

Author: John McCain with Mark Salter

Pages: 368

Genre: Biography

Grade: B+

Synopsis: The first half of this book is the story of McCain's naval forbears. His grandfather commanded an aircraft carrier in the Second World War and his father presided over all naval forces in the Pacific arena during the Vietnam War. McCain then moves into the story of his own life at the Naval Academy and early naval career. McCain was on his second tour of Vietnam when he was shot down over Hanoi and imprisoned in cruel prison camp where many prisoners were tortured to death. The book ends with his release, finishing before his political career begins.

My Review: I enjoyed this book far more than I expected to. I thought the book was brutally honest, and would have been an extraordinary risk for many with political aspirations, had the book not ended with his imprisonment as a POW. John McCain's time at the Naval Academy was plagued with poor grades and bad behavior. The stories that McCain shares of his imprisonment were very interesting and inspiring for the courage that many of the POWs showed. What I most enjoyed about the book was the theme of the title, Faith of My Fathers where McCain shows a common thread between his grandfather's and father's beliefs and passions and his own.

From the Book: "(p. 254) In prison, I fell in love with my country. I had loved her before then, but like most young people, my affection was little more than a simple appreciation for the comforts and privileges most Americans enjoyed and took for granted. It wasn't until I had lost America for a time that I realized how much I loved her.
"I loved what I missed most from my life at home: my family and friends; the sights and sounds of my own country; the hustle and purposefulness of Americans; their fervid independence; sports; music; information--all the attractive qualities of American life. But though I longed for the things at home I cherished the most, I still shared the ideals of America. And since those ideals were all that I possessed of my country, they became all the more important to me."

"(p. 335) What packages we were allowed to receive from our families often contained handkerchiefs, scarves, and other clothing items. For some time, Mike had been taking little scraps of red and white cloth, and with a needle he had fashioned from a piece of bamboo he laboriously sewed an American flag onto the inside of his blue prisoner's shirt. Every afternoon, before we ate our soup, we would hang Mike's flag on the wall of our cell and together recite the Pledge of Allegiance. No other event of the day had as much meaning to us.
"The guards discovered Mike's flag one afternoon during a routine inspection and confiscated it. They returned that evening and took Mike outside. For our benefit as much as Mike's they beat him severely, just outside our cell, puncturing his eardrum and breaking several of his ribs. When they had finished, they dragged him bleeding and nearly senseless back into our cell, and we helped him crawl to his place on the sleeping platform. After things quieted down, we all lay down to go to sleep. Before drifting off, I happened to look toward a corner of the room, where one of the four naked lightbulbs that were always illuminated in our cell cast a dim light on Mike Christian. He had crawled there quietly when he thought the rest of us were sleeping. With his eyes nearly swollen shut from the beating, he had quietly picked up his needle and begun sewing a new flag."