John McCain — my dad’s fellow POW, and a hero in more ways than one

“Whether we think each other right or wrong on the issues of the day,” said the late Sen. John McCain, “we owe each other respect.”

McCain’s philosophy on relationships is just one of the things that reminds me of my dad, Capt. Jim Shively. He and McCain were both fighter pilots, shot down over Hanoi in 1967, and badly injured. They were both captured and imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton, beaten severely, underwent routine and systematic torture with ropes, and were bound in iron stocks in isolation.