HONOLULU — When John McCain first arrived in a Vietnam prison, fellow inmates saw a hard-nosed, impatient Navy pilot who wouldn’t tolerate mental weakness from his peers against their communist jailers.
But even the tough, belligerent McCain was broken and humbled over 5 1/2 years of torture and degradation at the so-called Hanoi Hilton, said Jerry Coffee, also a Navy pilot who was shot down in the Vietnam War and spent much of his seven years of imprisonment with the future GOP presidential contender.
“It turned out we weren’t as tough as we thought we were. He wasn’t any tougher than anyone else. We all were broken at one time or another,” said Coffee, who heads McCain’s Hawaii campaign.
The war changed McCain, making him more forgiving despite his mistreatment, Coffee said. For example, McCain pushed for normalized diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995, a step that angered some families who believed Americans were still being held against their will.
“If you hate someone, you’re just allowing them to continue to control you,” Coffee said. “John put unfortunate events behind him and he moved on.”
