John McCain: Love Lifted Me

Posted by guest blogger Mommynator [and, interjecting here for a moment, a must read - *Mr. Brutally Honest]

Let me tell you the story of a man who was born and raised in Athens, Greece.

His father had fled Constantinople during the last of the Ottomans, leaving family wealth and businesses and possessions behind.

His mother was left fatherless at a very early age, and her mother had very limited choices in post-WW1 Greece. Rather than join the prostitution trade, she married her daughter off to this much older man. She was 12 years old at her wedding. A year later, she produced a son, and a year after that she produced a daughter.

Fast forward 19 years, and this boy's beloved father died of kidney failure due to untreatable and recurrent pneumonia (no antibiotics). The young man was desolate - left to comfort and support his mother and sister. World War II was creeping its way across the European continent, and this young man joined the Greek navy. He had always loved the sea, and this was a logical move. It meant a steady income that he could send home, and he was taken care of.

Eventually, because of certain skills, he was moved to the intelligence portion of the navy. He worked as a spy and codebreaker, making him a permanent persona non grata to the communist bloc - if he ever tried to travel behind the Iron Curtain before it fell, he would have disappeared. He exposed many traitors and eventually broke one of the major codes used by the Albanians to steal Greek children so they could be indoctrinated in communism. He did this at considerable risk to his own life.

The Greek government wanted to give him their equivalent of our Medal of Honor, but he refused and asked to be discharged.

He returned to civilian life and entered the Polytechnic University in Athens. However, the stress of trying to support his mother and sister, along with PTSD and the strain of studying eventually sent him into nervous prostration. His mother actually had to feed him. He spent many bleak, black months in bed unable to do very much for himself.

When he had recovered sufficiently, he went back to the polytechnic to finish his bachelors degree. During that time, he had the heartbreak of having to fight off the rioting organized communists who were trying to take over the Greek government. Imagine - he fought and exposed these people at the risk of his life during the war and had to re-fight that battle after the war.

After obtaining his degree, the Civil Engineering Society of Athens asked him to go to the United States to do some research on skyscrapers. Athens was prone to earthquakes and was spread far and wide, and they needed to know how to build office space more than a few stories high without them collapsing at the first hint of a tremor. So this young man boarded a ship and arrived in New York where true to his mission, he did the required research at Columbia University and in Chicago. And while he lived here, he fell in love with America. He was able to obtain a student visa and obtained a Masters degree in Civil Engineering, a wife and citizenship.

This young man was my father.

Growing up, I always remember him praising our government and the opportunities spread far and wide, like an overloaded picnic blanket with a feast of good things. Class didn't matter. Accents didn't matter much. Just the ambition and drive to do well and the opportunity. He adored America. Voting took on almost sacramental status.

He died in 1981, just a little over a year after the birth of his grandson who he also adored.

I thought of him as I read John McCain's acceptance speech - he was on too late for me to stay up.

I was completely touched by his account of his time as a prisoner of war - and having real enemies who didn't care about his life or health, who broke him and sent him back to his cell seemingly less of a man.

". . . after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before, for a long time, and they broke me.

When they brought me back to my cell, I was hurt and ashamed, and I didn't know how I could face my fellow prisoners. The good man in the cell next door to me, my friend, Bob Craner, saved me.                                 

Through taps on a wall, he told me I had fought as hard as I could. No man can always stand alone. And then he told me to get back up and fight again for my country and for the men I had the honor to serve with, because every day they fought for me. 
   
I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and goodness of its people.

I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn't my own man anymore; I was my country's.

I'm not running for president because I think I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need.

My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God."

In my first post on this board, I talked about Common Grace - that in doing God's will even if we don't know or realize or care about it, we receive the consequences of such obedience. John McCain experienced that grace in the Hanoi Hilton those many years ago. I don't know if he consciously prayed and called out to God, but the Bible tells us that sometimes we groan prayers that we don't comprehend and we are heard.

I do not always agree with Mr. McCain, but having read his speech, having read much commentary on it and on his demeanor when he presented it, I believe that he understands what it is to love someone or something more than one's self and to serve from love. In this age that is always telling us that we have to pamper ourselves, and make ourselves happy and serve ourselves and indulge ourselves, John McCain understands that a servant's heart is the happiest when it serves Good.

This is why this woman, who was so thrilled that he was man enough to nominate a strong, independent, wise, determined and beautiful woman for vice president, will trust this man with the presidency. Like marriage, there will be spats and arguments, but there will be trust and love running under the surface irritations. I'm going with the old soldier who I would trust with my worldly goods, my passwords, my credit cards and most important of all, my family as a commander in chief.

Because he has shown that he loves his country, and he will follow his conscience and do what is right in spite of party lines and other such stupid considerations.

My father returned to Greece for a long visit in 1967. It was my first visit there, and I was distracted by the touristing and sightseeing and history and relatives I never knew I had and re-learning the language. I knew there had been a coup, and a junta had its iron fist over the populace. The superintendent of my grandmother's apartment building had been sent away to jail for some infraction or other, the press was stifled, and many other things probably happened that I in my 11-year-old ignorance didn't realize.

He came home to America heartbroken that his beloved Greece, the first love of his heart, had succumbed to socialism and communism and the reign of power over people instead of the laissez-faire happiness of pre-war Greece. We went back once more in 1971, thought about staying and had a job lined up, and then decided he could not watch Greece descend even further into its disease.

Eleven years later he died, never having returned. He became more fiercely involved in America and its goodness and opportunity even though he did not completely comprehend it all. His time in the intelligence corps had made certain deep twists in his mind that he never could quite get rid of.

He would have approved of John McCain - a fellow naval officer and survivor of horrors - even as he would have argued with him over certain of his policies.

I thought of that old hymn, "Love Lifted Me", when Mr. McCain described his life after his brokenness and captivity:

    I was sinking deep in sin,
    far from the peaceful shore.

    Very deeply stained within
    sinking to rise no more.

    But the Master of the sea (very appropriate for old sailors)
    heard my despairing cry -
    from the waters lifted me
    now safe am I.

    (CHORUS)
    Love lifted me! Love lifted even me!
    When nothing else could help, love lifted me!
    Love lifted me! Love lifted even me!
    When nothing else could help, love lifted me!

John McCain understands that.

Comments

[Andy]

Great post....and a fantastic read.

Thanks for choking me up.

AM

[Dems 4 McCain-Palin]

That was a very heartwarming story... I too am voting for McCain.. Cheers to your dad... He must be smiling on you right now!!!

;)

[chuck]

Thanks Rick for posting and Mommynator for sharing!

All of Europe has long appeared to me to be slipping into the abyss of socialism. I truly hope I am wrong.