Delivers Remarks at a Campaign Event in Michigan

HEADLINE: U.S. SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ) DELIVERS REMARKS AT CAMPAIGN EVENT IN MICHIGAN
SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ)

*

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

MCCAIN: ... should have a quality education and should be able to get a great job in the information technology of this country.

(APPLAUSE)

The way I want to give that to you—and, by the way, our state superintendent of education in the state of Arizona, Lisa Graham- Keegan (ph), is here.

Lisa, would you say hello and come up here.

One second. I want you to me, also, not only the smartest but the most attractive superintendent of public education in America, Lisa Graham-Keegan. Can you thank—welcome her for being here.

There you go, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

We've got to give—we've got to give you—we've got to give your parents the same thing that every wealthy parent in America—choice they have, and that is to send you to the school of their choice in their neighborhood. My friends, we think the charter schools work. We'd like to test vouchers, but we don't want to take the money from public education. I want to do away with all this corporate welfare and benefits that the big, powerful corporations in this company have. I want to do away with ethanol subsidies, gas and oil subsidies, sugar subsidies, and I want to give money to test vouchers. But I also want to do something else, and I think you would agree with me. We got to pay your teachers a lot more money than they're getting today. We need to give them that.

(APPLAUSE)

You think that Mr. Kreeger (ph) deserves a bonus today?

(APPLAUSE)

Yes, OK, there you go. All right. Boy, we've got those kids—you got them trained, Randy.

Really, we need to give merit pay for teachers and we need to have it based on student performance. I know you've got some great teachers, but we've got to get a lot more of them and we've got to reward them. The average salary of a lawyer today in America is $79,000 a year. The average salary of a teacher is $39,000 a year. There is no reason, no reason why a good teacher should be paid less money than a bad senator, right? So we got to give them more money than they get—than they have today.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to make it possible so that every one of you here that wants to go to college will receive the ability to go to college. But I want to tell you how I think we can make that possible. The greatness of America, the greatness of this incredible nation of ours is that young people have stepped forward time after time after time to serve their country. That's really the essence of America and what has made us the noblest experiment on Earth. My friends, throughout our entire history, we have asked young people to serve and sacrifice. I want to motivate you again.

About six months ago, Russ Feingold and I, a senator from Wisconsin, were given the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage award. And the reason why we were given that award at the Kennedy Library is because we have been struggling and fighting and struggling against the establishment, against the big money people, against the guys in thousand-dollar suits, the establishment who have taken the government of this country away from you and given it to the big monied interests, and I'm going to get it back to you so that you're involved in the political process again, and I want you to be involved.

(APPLAUSE)

My commitment to you—my commitment to you is that I'll break the iron triangle in Washington of special interests, big money and lobbyists so that you'll be represented again, so that you'll be motivated to serve.

There's a senator—there's a United States senator in this room, and there may be a president of the United States in this room, but I've got to set the example for you so that you can serve.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, I also also want to talk to you again about the fact that young people are not participating in the political process. I will motivate you, I will serve you in a way that you can admire and respect and that you will want to serve this country again; not only here, but around the world. The United States of America is the greatest force for good in the world and we can, therefore, make the best things happen in the world, not only here, but all around the world where people still live in poverty, in oppression, repression, under terrible conditions. We and you together can change the world, my friends, if you have the right leadership and the right motivation. And that's what my presidency is all about.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

Listen, I promised you I wouldn't talk for a long time. I want you to go home. I want to give you an admonition and then I'm going to tell you a story. I want you to go home and make sure your parents vote. I don't care if your parents—or if you are 18, I want to you vote. If you're 16, try and sneak in.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

That's a joke. That's a joke. That's a joke. I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat or libertarian or vegetarian, what I want your parents to do is get out and vote and do what is our fundamental obligation and our greatest privilege, and that is the selection, because I'll tell you this, my friends: If I win—if I win tomorrow in Michigan, there's no stopping me, and I'm going right on to the White House because I'll beat...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

AUDIENCE: McCain, McCain, McCain...

MCCAIN: Because, my friends, with your parents' help and your involvement, I'm going to beat Al Gore like a drum and send him back to Tennessee, I promise you that.

(APPLAUSE)

So, let's get out the vote tomorrow, recognize how important Michigan is, and how important this election is, and I want to thank you for being here.

Now, I want to end up by telling you a story. I want to tell you a story that happened a long, long time ago when I was in prison in Hanoi in a POW camp. I know that a lot of you were not alive at the time of the Vietnam War. I know that a lot of you know that you have relatives and that there's many, many young citizens of the state of Michigan who were not very much older than you who went to Vietnam and served and sacrificed.

And when you go to Washington, D.C., be sure you go down to the Vietnam War Memorial where you will see etched in granite the names of 50-some-thousand brave, proud, young Americans who gave their lives in defense of somebody else's freedom. These are our greatest heroes. These are the young men and women who went out and tried to make the world safe for democracy. They tried to free an oppressed people, they tried to keep them free. And although their cause was not realized, there cause was a noble one.

Now, as you may know, I was shot down and captured in October of 1967. I intercepted a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane, which is no mean feat in those days. When I was shot down, I went into a lake in the center of the city of Hanoi and I broke both my arms and leg in the ejection. I was pulled from the lake and very badly mistreated and I nearly died. But thanks to my dear friends and comrades in prison, my life was saved. I am not a hero. My great privilege was to serve in the company of heroes. I observed a thousand acts of courage and compassion and love while I was in that prison camp.

I'd like to tell you a brief story. When I see the American flag over there on the wall, I am reminded of this story. The prison camp in which we lived in Hanoi, for a long time, we were kept in conditions of solitary confinement, or two or three to a cell. The Vietnamese treated—kept us in these conditions because it's easier to break down resistance or get people to cooperate or do things they don't want to do if you keep them divided or in solitary confinement.

Well, in 1970, for reasons that are still not clear to us, the Vietnamese changed our treatment from one or two to a cell into putting us into cells of 25 or 30 in each cell. This was a wonderful change. Everything was—everybody was happy to have the
opportunity to be together.

One of the men who moved in with that cell with me was a man by the name of Mike Christian (ph). Mike Christian was born in a small town near Selma, Alabama. He came from a very, very poor family. He didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years of age. When he was 17, he enlisted in the United States Navy and then later became an officer and then a pilot and was shot down and captured in 1966.

Mike Christian had a great appreciation for the wonderful opportunities that the military provides to all of us. The uniform that we wore in prison was a short-sleeved blue shirt, blue trousers that are like pajama trousers, and shoes that were sandals that were cut out of automobile tires. I recommend them very highly. One pair lasted me the whole five and a half years that I was there.

As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed us to have some packages from home. In those would be like a scarf or a handkerchief. My friend Mike Christian took a piece of white cloth and a piece of red cloth, and using a bamboo needle, was able to sew on the inside of his shirt the American flag. It took him a couple months to do it. Every evening in our prison cell, we would take Mike Christian's shirt and put it on the wall of our cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Now, I admit to you that saying the Pledge of Allegiance is not the most important part of our day in our everyday life. In that prison cell—there were a couple of guys who had already been there as long as seven years—saying the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag and country was, indeed, the most important and meaningful part of our day.

One day, the Vietnamese came into our cell, the guards, and they searched the cell, which they did periodically, and they found Mike Christian's shirt with the flag sewn inside of it. They removed it. That evening, they came back, they opened the door of the cell, they called for Mike Christian to come out. He did, and they slammed the door of the cell, and then for the next two hours beat him rather severely, at the completion of which they opened the door of the cell and they threw him back into the cell. You can imagine, he was not in very good shape.

The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab on which we slept, and dim light bulbs shone one in each—all four corners of the room. We cleaned up Mike Christian—he had gotten some pretty bad injuries—and we helped him as much as we could. I went over to lie down on the slab to go to sleep, and I happened just by accident to look in the corner of the cell. There sitting there with a blue shirt and piece of red cloth and a piece of white cloth and his bamboo needle with eyes almost shut from the beating he had received was my friend Mike Christian sewing another American flag.

Now, he wasn't doing that because it made Mike feel better, he did that because he knew that it was so important for us to be able to pledge allegiance to our flag and our country.

So, when I'm in your presence, sometimes I think of Mike Christian because out there is the same nobility and the same sacrifice which has made us such wonderful, wonderful people. And also I'm reminded that we, from time to time, should remember that, for the sake of the American flag, in quiet groves that were once killing fields all over the world, rest the bones of young Americans who served and sacrificed for that flag as well.

Thank you for being here today. Thank you very much, and thank you for having me. And be sure that everybody votes. Thank you, again.

END

NOTES:
Unknown - Indicates speaker unknown.
Inaudible - Could not make out what was being said. off mike - Indicates could not make out what was being said.