Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 23, 2016
The military career of John McCain began with attack aircraft missions as a naval aviator in the Vietnam War and internment for more than five years as a prisoner of war. McCain's father and grandfather were admirals in the United States Navy. Born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone, McCain graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958. In Vietnam, he narrowly escaped death in the 1967 Forrestal fire. On a bombing mission in October 1967, he was shot down over Hanoi and badly injured before becoming a prisoner of war. In 1968, he refused a North Vietnamese offer of early release, because it would have meant leaving before other prisoners who had been held longer. He was released in 1973 after the Paris Peace Accords. Upon his return, McCain studied at the National War College and commanded a large training squadron in Florida. In 1979 he was promoted to captain and became the director of the navy's Senate Liaison Office. McCain has been a U.S. Senator from Arizona since 1987, and was the Republican candidate in the 2008 presidential election. (Full article...)