McCain genuinely cares about veterans
There are so many reasons to support John McCain for President. However, for me, my major reason comes from personal contact I had with the senator in Northern Illinois a few years ago.
Everyone is familiar with McCain the senator.
He is a statesman who routinely crosses party lines, such as when he teamed up with Sen. Feingold in an attempt to reform campaign financing. He is a war hero who showed leadership in captivity, keeping morale high despite torture and brutal living conditions. He is a maverick who challenged the President of the United States on war policy and promoted the surge in Iraq, giving us victory instead of defeat. He is a great steward of our national finances, fighting wasteful spending and earmarks and opposing unnecessary tax increases.
But he is more than all of that to me. He is simply one of the most decent human beings I have had the honor of meeting.
I was part of a group of volunteers who helped in a fundraiser for another candidate, where Sen. McCain was the featured speaker. I was one of two people who picked the senator up from the airport. John McCain treated me with the ordinary formal courtesy you would expect from a celebrity, not knowing anything about me and making polite conversation. However, at the fundraiser, I saw a different side of him.
The senator was scheduled to deliver his speech, and nobody could find him. I joined the search, and went outside to see if he went to get a breath of fresh air. There I found John McCain having a conversation with the valets. He had learned that the valets were Navy veterans working part time at the fundraiser for spending money. He was genuinely interested in them and spoke to them for a considerable period of time.
When I told him that everyone was waiting for his speech, it seemed that he did not want to leave the conversation with his fellow Navy veterans. He valued the veterans more than the donors inside the building, and he went out of his way to let them know that they were important to him.
As a Desert Storm Marine Corps veteran, it was refreshing to see a major political figure do more than just give lip service as to how much he values veterans. John McCain did more that day than just talk about how much he values veterans, he gave them one of his most precious commodities - his time.
This seems to be the way of John McCain - actions over words. Isn't that what we want in a President?
Peter S. Karlovics
Gurnee