the types of bindings that leave you broken physically and mentally.
I really feel badly for him or anyone who went through that. I don't understand his flip flop on torture, clearly he's not all there.
Snipped from Wikipedia:
John McCain's capture and imprisonment began on October 26, 1967. He was flying his twenty-third bombing mission over North Vietnam, when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi.<34><35> McCain fractured both arms and a leg, and then nearly drowned, when he parachuted into Trúc Bạch Lake in Hanoi.<34> After he regained consciousness, a crowd attacked him, crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt, and bayoneted him;<34> he was then transported to Hanoi's main Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton".<35>
Although McCain was badly wounded, his captors refused to treat his injuries, instead beating and interrogating him to get information.<37> Only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral did they give him medical care<37> and announce his capture. His status as a prisoner of war (POW) made the front pages of The New York Times<38> and The Washington Post.<39>
McCain spent six weeks in the hospital while receiving marginal care.<34> Now having lost 50 pounds (23 kg), in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white,<34> McCain was sent to a different camp on the outskirts of Hanoi<40> in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week.<41> In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years.<42>
In mid-1968, McCain's father was named commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater, and McCain was offered early release.<43> The North Vietnamese wanted to appear merciful for propaganda purposes,<44> and also wanted to show other POWs that elites like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially.<43> McCain turned down the offer of repatriation; he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.<34>
In August of 1968, a program of severe torture began on McCain.<45> McCain was subjected to repeated beatings and rope bindings, at the same time as he was suffering from dysentery.<45> After four days, McCain made an anti-American propaganda "confession".<34> He has always felt that his statement was dishonorable,<46> but as he would later write, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."<47> His injuries left him permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head.<48> He subsequently received two to three beatings per week because of his continued refusal to sign additional statements.<49> Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions" and propaganda statements, with many enduring even worse treatment than McCain.<50>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain