In his 1999 bestseller Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir, Sen. John McCain wrote about growing up in one of America’s most storied military families. His father and grandfather were both four-star admirals who had a powerful influence on his life.
“They were my first heroes,” he writes, “and earning their respect has been the most lasting ambition of my life. They have been dead many years now, yet I still aspire to live my life according to the terms of their approval. They were not men of spotless virtue, but they were honest, brave, and loyal all their lives.
“For two centuries,” he adds, “the men of my family were raised to go to war as officers in America’s armed services. It is a family history that, as a boy, often intimidated me, and for a time, I struggled halfheartedly against its expectations. But when my own time at war arrived, I realized how fortunate I was to have been raised in such a family.
“…First made a migrant by the demands of my father’s career, in time I became self-moving, a rover by choice. In such a life, some fine things are left behind, and missed. But bad times are left behind as well. You move on, remembering the good, while the bad grows obscure in the distance.”
—Excerpt From Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir by John McCain with Mark Salter
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