Okay …. republican presidential candidate John McCain was a POW for five and a half years, enduring - as he’s described it - “brutal torture” that was so horrific that he “broke” and attempted to kill himself. He even has put this in political ads.
Sooooooo, no post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulted due to this? Vietnam, shot down, tortured for over five years, attempted suicide, and none of it affected him beyond that? He’s never stated that he ever suffered from (or is still suffering from) PTSD and, as near as I can tell, not one print or broadcast reporter has called him on it. They’ve gone rabidly after politicians for depression, alcohol, drugs, infidelity, illegal immigrant house staff, and stuff they did or said in their high school years, but McCain possibly having a fairly severe emotional disorder is being given a pass?
Somebody get Tom Brocaw down here for me to bitch slap, okay?
There's MORE AT THE LINK. It brings up some interesting questions, just about how that generation views mental health in general, let alone the mental health of VietNam veterans.
Should presidential candidates be required to prove mental health, in addition to physical health? At what point would something raise red flags? Would we have caught Reagan's Alzheimer's early then? McCain seems to have been mentally stable through out his political career, but we're also talking about a man who would be the oldest person elected president. Things break as you get older, and mental stability can be a first casualty.
When we learn McCain's running mate, the question of 'do we want #2 running the country' becomes more acute, and not just an abstract, when #1 would be 72 at the time of inauguration.
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