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Definition of a “hero,” from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “A person admired for achievements and noble qualities; one who shows great courage.” Sen. John McCain, the difficult-to-categorize, at least in a political sense, Republican senator from Arizona, was four days shy of his 82nd birthday when on Aug. 25 he finally succumbed to the ravishing effects of gliobastoma, a rare form of brain cancer he was first diagnosed as having on July 14, 2017. Those with aggressive GBM, as it is known in its shortened form, have a median survival period of 14 months, meaning the combative former Navy pilot did not outlive normal projections for those similarly stricken. For those familiar with the incredible true story of a genuine American hero, Sen. McCain’s adherence to any kind of norm must seem odd.
His admirers – and they are many, including those who often opposed his positions as a two-time presidential candidate, two-term congressman and six-term senator – can be excused for somehow believing that a man who had survived as much as John Sidney McCain III had could somehow do it again if only through the force of his will and, maybe, his genetic makeup. Among his surviving family members is his 106-year-old mother, Roberta. “It’s been quite a ride,” McCain, acknowledging the inevitability of his latest confrontation with the specter of death, wrote in a memoir published in May. “I’ve known great passions, seen amazing wonders, fought in a war, and helped make peace. I’ve lived very well and I’ve been deprived of all comforts. I’ve been as lonely as a person can be and I’ve enjoyed the company of heroes. I’ve suffered the deepest despair and experienced the highest exultation.
“I made a small place for myself in the story of America and the history of my times.”
A small place in the multifaceted story of John McCain, one that almost surely will not be mentioned this week by former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, among those expected to speak at McCain’s Thursday funeral service at Washington National Cathedral (a private funeral is planned for Sunday at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.), is the former USNA boxer’s unabashed love of the sport, and his relentless championing of its participants.
McCain co-authored, along with Sen. Richard Bryan (D-Nev.), the Professional Boxing Safety Act, which became law on July 1, 1997, and he also sponsored the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, which became law on May 26, 2000. He would have preferred to go even further, but his vision of providing pension and unionized protections for professional boxers ran into the sort of legislative roadblocks that have become all too common in a political landscape marked by increasing partisanship. The biggest impediment to a boxers’ union and pension plan is the international aspect of boxing, with two of the four major world sanctioning bodies headquartered abroad: the WBA in Venezuela and the WBC in Mexico. It can be argued that the WBO, based in Puerto Rico, also is under “foreign” purview, although the Caribbean island is a territory of the United States. Read more
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