Senator John McCain Died Saturday Evening, 25 August

Eternal Father in the Navy Chapel will make you cry if your kid is a MID. Line up from gate eight or even one by the Chapel along the route to Hospital Point. It would be a fitting tribute. Hope they have a service at the Chapel.
 
Just saw the pic as they prep to lay him to rest next to Admiral Larson. Both amazing men. Glad they get to Rest In Peace next to each other. The USNA cemetery is an amazing and tranquil place that every Mid has walked through and read the headstones hoping to measure up one day. I have buried my friends there on several occasions and stood out there looking at the Severn. It’s an amazing place.
 
NavyHoops said:
Just saw the pic as they prep to lay him to rest next to Admiral Larson. Both amazing men. Glad they get to Rest In Peace next to each other. The USNA cemetery is an amazing and tranquil place that every Mid has walked through and read the headstones hoping to measure up one day. I have buried my friends there on several occasions and stood out there looking at the Severn. It’s an amazing place.
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I was there at 2pm today and looked around the cemetery. It is an amazing resting place. I didn’t see them preparing anything, but maybe I missed it. Looks like next Sunday is the day on the yard. They are having a small service at the chapel and a private service at the cemetery. I asked my kid if he heard anything and of course, he had not.
 
The Chapel is a beautiful place and he should receive full honors there. Brigade should line the streets out to Hospital Point. Navy Choir should perform Eternal Father and Navy Blue and Gold.
 
NavyHoops said:
Just saw the pic as they prep to lay him to rest next to Admiral Larson. Both amazing men. Glad they get to Rest In Peace next to each other. The USNA cemetery is an amazing and tranquil place that every Mid has walked through and read the headstones hoping to measure up one day. I have buried my friends there on several occasions and stood out there looking at the Severn. It’s an amazing place.
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And for other visitors, my personal favorite is Fleet ADM Arleigh Burke’s headstone, which simply has “Sailor” under his name. And his equally legendary wife Roberta, who has “A Sailor’s Wife.”
 
They might do it in the lower Chapel. Much more quiet, peaceful and still beautiful.
 
A few students and I watched the press conference of McCain's friend and advisor Rick Davis. Mr. Davis read a letter penned by Sen McCain. The letter is beautiful and linked here to a source without commentary.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/politics/john-mccain-farewell-statement/index.html

I was fine until Mr. Davis got to this part; then, we both choked up a bit. "...we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before. We always do."
 
Saw this today in the Wall Street Journal...

While the searing experience of Vietnam led so many to lose their faith in America's goodness, for John McCain it was the opposite.

"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's."
- John McCain​
 
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Taps Echoed over the hill is a moving experience. Still want the Brigade to line the street to Hospital Point and render salute.
 
MJ; It is all for those who go down to the Sea in Ships. Not what Country. Semper Fie .
 
One of our sponsor USNA ‘18s on stash duty said the call went out for mids to line Decatur Ave today for the USNA ceremonies, in Summer White. It won’t be mandatory, because John McCain of all people would never have messed with a mid’s 3-day weekend.

Full-on honors: flyover, music, 3 volleys, 19 gun salute, Taps, flag-folding and presentation. The sound will thunder impressively and echo plaintively across the Severn River, just as it should.
 
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The last words of Meghan McCain’s eulogy referred to this poem, most apt:

High Flight
- John Gillespie McGee, Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds,
and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of
Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew,
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
 
My Plebe was there. He said there were 600 Mids - lining both sides of the street - spaced so perfectly apart, that you could get it down to about a +/- 1" tolerance.
He said that wouldn't have missed it for anything.
 
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Thank you so much for sharing the beautiful photos. I have a really funny story about meeting him on the Yard once, but this wouldn’t be the appropriate time to share. Let’s just say, he was an absolute gem of a man!
 
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