John McCain
Town Hall
Nashville, TN 06/02/08
TRANSCRIPT:
QUESTIONER: "The definition of the separation of church and state is beginning to look like the separation god and state. And the freedom of religion is turning into the freedom from religion. [applause] This country was founded on faith in god and now god's name is being removed from national monuments and local government buildings. I feel like I am only free to share my religious views as long as they are politically correct and they do not offend any one. So my question to you sir, what or who is the supreme authority in your life and how will it be evident in your presidency?" [applause]
MCCAIN: "I think in the experience that I had long ago and far away that the only major reason why I'm here today and probably is because of my faith. And I, uh, I believe that I'm here because I was not only granted one more day, which I was I what ask for or sometimes one more hour or one more minute. And that happens to be a product of an experience that I shared with many other brave Americans. Maybe I can just tell you one brief story. When we were in prison in North Viet Nam, the North Vietnamese wanted to use us as tools of propaganda. In other words, the information that the average pilot has when he's captured is, er, uh, gets old very quickly. What they wanted to do was win the war by swaying public opinion, particularly in the United States, and in the world. So they would wanna get war crimes confessions, statements against our country, denouncing our country and the war. And sometimes they would use very rough tactics in order to achieve that. One of them was to take ropes and tie them and your arm and around your biceps and pull your arms tight behind you and loop the rope around your head and pull your head down between your knees, and leave you there for extended periods of time. As you can imagine, it was a very unpleasant experience. One night I was in that situation in an interrogation room and a guy walked in . . . who was what we called a gun guard. A guy that just walks around for security, a guard . . . with a rifle on his shoulder. And he put his finger to his lips and reached down and loosened the ropes that were holding me a few hours later, he came back, tied me tight, those ropes up again and that was obviously the end of his watch. That was in October, as I recall. On Christmas Day, as it was Christmas, the North Vietnamese allowed us to come outside of our cells for a few minutes at separate times, because in those days I was in solitary confinement. So I was standing . . . in this courtyard outside of my cell, the same guy, the gun-guard, came walking over to me for a minute and he drew a cross on the ground and he stood there for a minute and then he erased it with his sandal. That's the one person who I've always wanted to see again." [applause]
LABEL: JM TN (EW#10) ABSU -- Clip I
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