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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona was born on
3August 29, 1936, and during the 81 years since that time, he
4has been a leader among his fellow Americans; and
 
5    WHEREAS, Senator McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone;
6his family was in the U.S. Navy; his father John S. "Jack"
7McCain Jr. was an honored naval officer who would eventually
8rise to the rank of Commander-in-Chief Pacific Command
9(CINCPAC); after growing up in a variety of locations
10throughout North America and the Pacific Ocean, he was admitted
11to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1954; and
 
12    WHEREAS, As a midshipman, Senator McCain turned his eyes
13towards the flying service; after his commissioning as a naval
14ensign, he trained at Naval Air Station Pensacola and at Naval
15Air Station Corpus Christi; as an aircraft carrier flier, he
16served during the Cuban missile crisis and, continuing his rise
17in the service, was assigned flight-instruction duties at Naval
18Air Station Meridian (Mississippi); and
 
19    WHEREAS, With the intensification of the Vietnam War,
20Senator McCain requested reassignment to combat duty and, in
211967, was assigned to fly A-4E Skyhawk attack jets based on the
22carrier U.S.S. Forrestal and then the U.S.S. Oriskany; the

 

 

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1Forrestal and Oriskany were assigned to Gulf of Tonkin duties;
2and
 
3    WHEREAS, On October 26, 1967, while engaged in combat over
4Hanoi, Senator McCain's Skyhawk was downed by Soviet/North
5Vietnamese anti-aircraft missile fire; severely injured upon
6his ejection from the doomed plane, he was immediately
7captured, beaten, and bayoneted by his captors, and confined as
8a prisoner of war; and
 
9    WHEREAS, In the "Hanoi Hilton" and other places of
10imprisonment, Senator McCain was subjected to torture and
11prolonged solitary confinement; after learning that their
12captive was the son of a high-ranking U.S. admiral, in June of
131968 the North Vietnamese told McCain that he was free to
14return to the United States; suspecting that this was a
15propaganda ploy intended to show American elitism in action,
16and in obedience to the United States Code of Conduct to be
17followed by all members of the U.S. Armed Forces who are
18prisoners of war, McCain stated to his captors that he would
19not leave captivity prior to his fellow prisoners; upon making
20this statement, he was returned to solitary confinement, which
21he would endure for a total of approximately two years; and
 
22    WHEREAS, Although Vietnam War peace negotiations began in
231969, a cease-fire agreement proved elusive, partly because of

 

 

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1prolonged disputes concerning the status of prisoners of war;
2during the four-year period from 1969 into 1973, Americans
3carried the prisoners of the Vietnamese War in their prayers
4and thoughts; the Paris Peace Accords were finally signed in
5January of 1973, and Senator McCain was released on March 14,
61973, after five and a half years of captivity, returning to
7active U.S. Navy service; and
 
8    WHEREAS, After achieving promotion to the rank of naval
9captain and commanding a squadron of his fellow fliers, Senator
10McCain retired from the U.S. Navy in April of 1981 with a
11determination to enter politics; he moved to Phoenix, the home
12city of his wife, Cindy Lou Hensley, and was elected to the
13U.S. House of Representatives as a congressman from Arizona in
141982, where he served for four years; he won election to the
15U.S. Senate in 1986; and
 
16    WHEREAS, As a lawmaker, Senator McCain has specialized in
17issues of U.S. defense and national security, rising to the
18rank of chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee;
19although he has compiled a strongly conservative voting record
20in the U.S. Senate, he has developed ties of friendship with
21lawmakers from both parties; and
 
22    WHEREAS, In September of 2008, the Republican Party
23nominated Senator McCain as their nominee for President of the

 

 

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1United States; McCain won the votes of more than 59.9 million
2Americans, which was a plurality of the vote in 22 of the 50
3states; and
 
4    WHEREAS, After the 2008 presidential election, Senator
5McCain returned to lawmaking and was elected to two additional
6terms in the U.S. Senate; he served actively as a drafter of
7bills and appropriations, and as a committee spokesman and
8chairman, until his affliction in 2017 with severe illness; the
9story of John McCain is now familiar to all Americans; and
 
10    WHEREAS, Senator McCain is the maverick; he is truly the
11independent statesman, the patriot which we all know, and the
12hero we all honor; therefore, be it
 
13    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
14HUNDREDTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we
15commend Navy Captain and United States Senator John McCain for
16his service, in war and in peace, to the United States of
17America; and be it further
 
18    RESOLVED, That we declare the life and congressional
19service of Senator McCain to be an inspiration to all
20Americans; and be it further
 
21    RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be

 

 

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1presented to Senator John McCain and his family at his home in
2Arizona and all members of the Illinois Congressional
3Delegation.