My latest hobby has been following the upcoming 2008 presidential election.
I ain’t gonna front, I got a mancrush on Obama – not just because of this girl, but of course.
Even though he might be able to convince to buy an iPhone, he will never be able to convince me to vote for the Bosnian mercenary – unless, he can somehow get me, ahem, seven minutes in heaven.
Hilarity aside (pun intended, but of course), allow me to introduce you to Mr. On.
In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain’s presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.
On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.
In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.
Dopeness indeed. But then:
From that brief encounter to his death at the age of 88 two years ago, Mr On never heard from the senator again, and three years after their meeting, McCain published an autobiography that makes no mention of his apparent debt to Mr On.
Not that I need to give you reasons not to vote for McCain, but how’s the wind in your stomach? Read the article for the account of their encounter.
5 Comments
May 9, 2008 at 7:41 am
Bad ass, you’z on WP!
May 9, 2008 at 7:42 am
This also means I can access your blog from home. I think. Unlike with Blogspot.
May 14, 2008 at 3:55 am
Huzzah! Everything looks good. How did you find my DKos page, by the way?
May 14, 2008 at 8:29 am
Michael – Blogspot can officially suck my back.
Preyanka – I googled you, in search of your homebase blog, and fancifully found your DKos page. Huz to the zah. I will say, without reading your posts about moving to Bangkok in depth, that you are making a poor decision (to move to BK). A wise woman once told me, “make your money in Hanoi, spend it in Thailand.”
May 20, 2008 at 5:15 am
Well, I’ll be making the big bucks in BKK and spending it in Hanoi every chance I get:)