If you look at John McCain's
campaign commercials, both his previous ads and his current ones, most
of them feature some visual or text reference to his time as a POW
during the Viet Nam war.

Something about these references
always seemed to gnaw at me. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it
was that disturbed me. I think I have figured it out but have been
hesitant to write about it.

My father was a Marine during the
Second World War and fought in the South Pacific. I can count on the
fingers of one hand the number of times my father spoke about what he
experienced in the war. I do know that he had a visceral hatred, and I
do mean hatred, of the Japanese. But he never spoke of what he saw or
did there. I have always been interested in the history of WWII both in
Europe and in the Pacific. And since that war ended there has always
been some new movie, program, article or book on that period of history
even to today.

There have been innumerable stories written and
filmed about the horrors experienced by Allied servicemen captured by
the Japanese. The best known is probably "Bridge on the River Kwai"
which was the fictionalized account of the true story of British
soldiers forced into slave labor by the Japanese. The "living"
conditions for all of these men (and women) when revealed are almost
unbelievable in terms of our ability to comprehend how one human being
could do such things to another human being. By far the most horrific
experience in a long line of such things was the Bataan Death March. If
you see some of the survivors recount this event they almost cannot
verbalize the brutality and many decades later are reduced to tears and
sobbing at the memory.

I am not here to diminish in any way,
shape or form the terrible time spent McCain and his fellow POW's in
the so-called "Hanoi Hilton". Any time any human being is deprived of
his freedom and dignity is an abomination. But here's my problem with
McCain. He took the physical and mental suffering and turned into a
political asset. Something to be trotted during campaign season as if
to say to the voters: "See what I did for you? You owe me.".

I
find this an insult to the memory of every man or woman who suffered
similar and far worse at the hands of their captors. Shame on you John
McCain.

It also proves once again how shallow he and his campaign is. And how they lack any semblance of new ideas for America. Pitiful.