John McCain
Town Hall
Buena Vista, FL 06/05/08

TRANSCRIPT:
QUESTIONER: Sen. McCain, I'm Paul Tash with the St. Petersburg Times, you've thought an awful lot about the war in Iraq and there's probably nobody who's thought more about the war in Viet Nam than you. What are the historical lessons that you draw from Viet Nam that may apply in your own thinking to the course ahead in Iraq?

JOHN MCCAIN: Thank you Paul. The first thing I'd like to say is that my experience there caused me to hate war. I hate war. No one hates war more than the veteran who has experienced how keen is the loss of a comrade. So, and the Viet Nam war was especially painful, if that's possible . . . because it divided our country. And when our country was divided, it made it all the harder for our Viet Nam veterans to come all the way home because in some parts of America they were not welcomed home. Especially young people, who left because they were drafted, served their country honorably and came home. So, one of the first lessons is that I think we should never forget, how—and I'm, and I'm proud of America now because we are divided about the war but none of us are divided in our support for the young men and women who are serving our military. When we were defeated, and we never lost a battle, we never lost a battle, but our military was in many respects broken. And it took us a long time to fix it; it took us a long time. We had some very severe problems in our military following the Viet Nam War and thank god we had great leaders and great generals to, uh, and sergeants and others who repaired that. On a broader and different perspective, you have to maintain the support of the American people for any conflict in which you send young Americans into harm's way. And a lot of people say they're surprised . . . that Americans have become impatient. In some ways I'm surprised that they are as patient as they are because for nearly four years this war was very badly mishandled and over 4000 brave young Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice. So you've got to, uh, and I think Americans want us to come home the way I believe we're going to come home now, thanks to this new strategy, and that is with victory and with honor. But I also think that the American people and the congress need to be fully informed as what you're going to do. Because if you're going to be in on the takeoff--, uh, the landing then you need to be in on the takeoff. So there's gotta be good communication between leadership and the American people. If I were president of the United States today, I would be holding a briefing once a week about the situation in Iraq even if it was only covered by CSPAN. I think you've got to keep the American people informed when Americans are in harm's way. I think you should remember, at least in some respects, the Powell Doctrine. If you're going to go into a conflict, go in with a clear strategy for victory and do what's necessary to gain that victory as rapidly as possible. And one of the cardinal errors, and I commend to you reading and I'm sure that most of you have, Fiasco by Tom Ricks or Cobra 2, uh, it's been well-documented, the way that we really were not prepared in so many ways and even worse than unprepared following the initial military success. Um, but I finally do believe that as a special nation, we also have special responsibilities and sometimes those mean, those special responsibilities means greater involvement. I worry about, when we have a failed enterprise, then we have a period, or a sentiment of isolationism because, as I said, there is a great evil in the world today, in the form of radical Islamic extremism. And we have to combat it in many ways. The last option is military but it has to be, diplomatic, intelligence, many other ways, but at the end of the day, it's also an ideological struggle as well. So those are just a few. And can I just say, when I came home from Viet Nam after recovering, I had received an operation in Jacksonville, I went to the National War College, and I spent a time, a lot of time that year reading and studying the Viet Nam War because I was very, as you might imagine, I had some curiosity about where I ended up. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot during that year and I think that those lessons have stood me in good stead, particularly as far as the need for the most judicious use of committing young Americans into harm's way. It always must be the last resort. And it has to be thought through as the consequences of it.

LABEL: JM FL 6-5 (EW#13) SUGA -- Clip F

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