John McCain

In 1965, John McCain married Carol Shepp, a model from Philadelphia, thus becoming step-father to her two kids, Douglas and Andrew, from her previous marriage.

The couple had their first child in 1966: daughter Sidney. However, due to McCain’s extramarital affair with Cindy Lou Hensley, daughter of multimillionaire beer distributor in Phoenix, the couple divorced in 1980.

He married Cindy in 1980, a month after his divorce. The couple had four children: Meghan McCain (1984), John Sidney IV (1986), James Hensley (1988), and Bridget Leela (1991, adopted from a Bangladeshi orphanage).

John Sidney McCain III was born on August 29, 1936, at Coco Solo Naval Air Station, Panama Canal Zone, as the second of three kids, to naval officer John S. McCain Jr. and Roberta (Wright) McCain.

Both his father and paternal grandfather were four-star US navy admirals and came from a family of Scotch-Irish and English lineage.

After shifting between various navy bases in the US and abroad, his family settled in Arizona in 1951, where he went to a private preparatory boarding school, Episcopal High School, Alexandria, Virginia, graduating in 1954.

In order to continue the family tradition, he attended United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, and passed out in 1958.

John McCain started his military career with a two-and-half years training at Pensacola, thus becoming a naval aviator of ground-attack aircraft in 1960, and began flying USS Intrepid and USS Enterprise in the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas.

During the Vietnam War in July 1967, John McCain volunteered to fly A-4 Skyhawk in the bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder, where his plane went down in a bomb explosion, but McCain escaped with injuries on legs and chest.

In October 1967 while on his 23rd bombing mission, his A-4E Skyhawk was attacked over the North Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, where he broke both arms and one leg, and was held captive in Hoa Lo Prison or ‘Hanoi Hilton’.

He received medical treatment only after North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a high-ranking admiral. He rejected various offers of early release, not willing to violate military code of conduct and being used as a powerful piece of propaganda.

After spending five and a half years in different prison camps, including two years in solitary confinement, with continuous physical torture and maltreatment, he was released in March 1973 as a Prisoner of War (POW).

In 2000, John McCain ran for Republican presidential nomination against his biggest rival, Texas Governor George W. Bush. After initial primary wins, he lost to Bush and endorsed him thereafter, making a few appearances during Bush’s campaign.

He entered the presidential race for 2008 elections and became the Republic Party’s nominee, with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. He lost the election to Barack Obama.