McCain’s whole life is devoted to this country

Stephanie Plummer
Published: April 16, 2008

This is in response to Marsha Mercer’s April 7 column about John McCain.

I know that I am a very different person today at 40 years old than I was when I was a teenager.  I have grown into a responsible adult and parent. This is the normal and natural path that most of us follow as we age and mature. 

“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.”

I’m sure this applies to Marsha Mercer and John McCain also. Mercer’s opinion column was so unfair that I thought I was reading yet another tiresome joke about John McCain being too old or not conservative enough, etc.

She forgot to mention that after the Naval Academy he went on to serve this county as a fighter pilot and then as a prisoner of war for seven years.

I’m pretty sure that changed him from the “dismal student who broke rules and was a hot head” he was as a teenager, into a different man when he returned home from the Hanoi Hilton. I think all
Mercer’s readers deserve to know that he has devoted his entire adult life to serving our county: in the Navy, as a prisoner of war, as Senate liaison, a congressman and a senator.

STEPHANIE PLUMMER

Manassas