Birthdate
John Sidney McCain III was born August 29, 1936, on a naval base in the Panama Canal Zone. On August 29 of this year, he will be be 72 years old. If elected, his term would run until he was 76 years old.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_mccain]


Military Family
His father and paternal grandfather both became four-star United States Navy admirals. His family (including his older sister Sandy and younger brother Joe) also held naval postings.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_mccain]


Temper Tantrums
As a child, McCain would become so furious that he'd hold his breath until he passed out, a condition which his parents treated by dunking him in ice water.
[http://ontheissues.org/Social/John_McCain_Principles_+_Values.htm]


High School Nicknames
McCain graduated in 1954 from Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va. His nicknames were "McNasty" and "Punk".
[http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4565619&page=1]


Poor Student: Graduates Bottom Of His Class
This son and grandson of four-star admirals eventually graduated fifth from the bottom of his class in 1958 - 894 out of a class of 899.
[http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/readne/2008/03_31-16/TOP]


Wild Youth
While at Annapolis, McCain frequented strip clubs and bars, dated a stripper nickname "Marie the Flame of Florida". When reminiscing about her, he commented, "She was pretty volatile." He was a repeat member of the Century Club which included cadets with over 100 demerits (marks for misconduct). In his book Faith of My Fathers, McCain writes of his "excessive drinking, nightclubbing and little or no sleep."
[http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/03/mccain-and-flame-of-florida/...]


Lost 5 Military Aircraft
In 1958 McCain crashed his first plane into Corpus Christi Bay on a practice flight. He crashed his second plane flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula and clipping power lines. McCain's third crash occurred when he was returning from flying a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. McCain's fourth aircraft loss occurred July 29, 1967, soon after he was assigned to the USS Forrestal as an A-4 Skyhawk pilot. While seated in the cockpit of his aircraft waiting his turn for takeoff, an accidently fired rocket slammed into McCain's plane. He escaped from the burning aircraft, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and threatened to sink the ship. McCain's fifth loss happened during his 23rd mission over North Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967, when McCain's A-4 Skyhawk was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. McCain ejected from the plane breaking both arms and a leg in the process and subsequently parachuted into Truc Bach Lake near Hanoi.
[http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_mccain_lost_five_u.htm]


McCain's First Wife
Carol Shepp was a successful swimwear model in Philadelphia. She first met McCain while he was attending the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis from 1954 to 1958. Before marrying McCain in 1965, Carol was previously married to one of McCain's Annapolis classmates, with whom she had two children.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_McCain]


Carol McCain's Accident
While McCain was a prisoner of war in Hanoi, Carol Shepp McCain was involved in a horrific car accident suffering two smashed legs, a broken pelvis, broken arm, and ruptured spleen. She spent six months in the hospital, and over the course of the next two years had 23 operations as well as extensive physical therapy. She did not tell her husband about the accident in her letters to him, believing he already had enough to worry about. The McCains were reunited after his release from captivity on March 14, 1973. She was now four inches (ten centimeters) shorter, on crutches, and substantially heavier than when he had last seen her. In a 2008 interview, Carol McCain discussed the breakup of their marriage. "�My marriage ended because John McCain didn�t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_McCain] and [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html]


McCain Leaves Carol for Cindy
After his return from Viet Nam, McCain met Cindy Helmsley, 18 years his junior, while attending a military reception in Hawaii in 1979. Each initially lied about their ages, prompting McCain to crack ""So our marriage is really based on a tissue of lies." Cindy is the daughter of James Hensley, who founded Hensley & Co. in 1955,and Marguerite Hensley. She grew up as an only child in affluent circumstances, and was a rodeo queen in 1968. In February 1980, less than a year after he met Cindy, McCain petitioned a Florida court to dissolve his marriage to Carol, calling the union "irretrievably broken." One month later, he and Cindy were married.
[http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter5.html]


Rolling In Money
McCain is routinely is ranked among the richest in Congress. In 2007 he earned over $405,409, but his individual tax filing does not account for his wife's money.Cindy McCain initially refused to release her tax returns, but after media pressure, she release a two page summary of her 2006 returns showing an income of $6 million, not net worth which is estimated at $27 - $45 million.
[http://citizensforethics.org/node/31822]


Receives Yearly Disability
He has stated that he is strong enough to hike the Grand Canyon. Yet when McCain released his tax return for 2007, he separately disclosed that he received a pension of $58,358 that was not listed as income on his return. His campaign identified the tax-free income as a "disability pension" for injuries he sustained as a POW.
[http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-pension22apr22,1,6562984.story]


Receives Social Security
McCain's 2007 tax return shows he received $23,157 in Social Security payments, approximately $1,929.75 per month.
[http://www.dailynews.com/ci_9915374]


Secrecy Over Military Records
May 7, 2008: In response to the AP's Freedom of Information Act request, the Navy released 19 pages -- a two-page overview and 17 pages of McCain's military records, detailing Awards and Decorations. Each of these 17 pages is stamped with a number. These numbers range from 0069 to 0636. When arranged in ascending order, they precisely track the chronology of McCain's career. It seems reasonable to ask the Navy whether there are at least 636 pages in McCain's file, of which 617 weren't released to the Associated Press. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-klein/mccains-secret-questionab_b_107409.html]


Cancer
Sen. John McCain's battle with the most deadly type of skin cancer began in 1993, when doctors discovered and surgically removed a melanoma on his left arm. A second occurrence, in the middle of the 2000 Republican convention, became big news shortly after his first bid for the Republican nomination for president. Doctors removed the two new melanomas--one on his temple, another on his left arm--and at least one of his lymph nodes as well, likely to ensure that the cancer had not spread. Melanoma is the least common form of skin cancer but the most lethal.
[http://www.newsweek.com/id/113705]


Medical Records
In May of 2008, McCain released 1,173 pages of medical records spanning 2000 to 2008. Like many aging Americans, McCain takes medicine to keep his cholesterol in check. McCain's most recent exams show a range of health issues common in aging: He frequently has precancerous skin lesions removed, and in February had an early stage squamous cell carcinoma, an easily cured skin cancer, removed. He had benign colon growths called polyps taken out during a routine colonoscopy in March. The Vietnam veteran has degenerative arthritis from war injuries that might mean a future joint replacement. His blood pressure and weight were healthy, and his cholesterol good but not optimal – and he switched medication from the controversial Vytorin that made headlines this past winter to a proven standby, simvastatin.
[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/05/23/2008-05-23_john_mccain_appears_cancerfree_healthy_w.html]


Keating Five
1989: The "Keating Five" were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. McCain and four other senators were accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). McCain received $112,000 by 1987 from Keating and Keating's relatives and employees to McCain's Senate campaign, more than any of the other Senators. In addition to campaign contributions, McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. It was also found that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental Corporation (parent of Lincoln) jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain also did not pay Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Lincoln Savings and Loan's collapse is said to have cost taxpayers $3.4 billion. After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee criticized McCain for "questionable conduct."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five]


McCain's Son Resigns From 2 Bank Industry Boards Of Directors
July 27, 2008: Andrew K. McCain, son of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, has resigned from the boards of Silver State Bancorp and Silver State Bank of southern Nevada for "personal reasons." Shares of Silver State Bancorp, of which Andrew McCain owns 1,226, closed at $1.28 a share on Friday, July 25, 2008. The stock's 52-week high on Nasdaq (symbol SSBX) is $24.10. While Silver State Bancorp has not yet been seized by federal regulators, they may be near the top of the watch list. In mid-July 2008, the investment site The Motley Fool listed Silver State as three bank stocks not to buy right now. [http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCains_son_resigns_from_two_Boards_0727.html]


McCain's Claim Of Being Offered Admiral's Star Questioned
1981: Despite being a poor performing Naval Academy student (bottom 1% of his class), repeatedly cited for misconduct while at Annapolis, and losing military aircraft, McCain claims he was offered an admiralship after being a captain for less than 2 years. This has been questioned by many in the military as extremely unusual and highly unlikely. In McCain's own book Worth the Fighting For, he states, "Several months before my father died, I informed him that I was leaving the navy.... For when I left him that day, alone in his study, I took with me his hope that I might someday become the first son and grandson of four-star admirals to achieve the same distinction. That aspiration was well beyond my reach by the time I made my decision...."
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-klein/mccains-secret-questionab_b_107409.html]