Vietnam, Former Jailer Pay Respects to Sen. McCain

What’s the story?

• The former Vietnamese colonel who was in charge of the “Hanoi Hilton” - where the late Sen. John McCain was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years - said he respected the onetime inmate and felt saddened by his death.
• At the same time, Vietnam’s foreign minister said the Arizona senator was a “symbol of his generation” who helped “heal the wounds of war” by pushing for diplomatic normalization of ties with Vietnam.

POW

• McCain was taken prisoner after his Skyhawk was shot down over Hanoi in 1967.

“At that time I liked him personally for his toughness and strong stance,” former Col. Tran Trong Duyet told Vietnam News on Sunday. “When I learnt about his death (Sunday), I feel very sad. I would like to send condolences to his family. I think it’s the same feeling for all Vietnamese people as he has greatly contributed to the development of Vietnam-U.S. relations.”

U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. John McCain, center, is escorted by Lt. Cmdr. Jay Coupe Jr., to Hanoi, Vietnam's Gia Lam Airport, after McCain was released from captivity. (AP Photo/Horst Faas, File)

 Hanoi Memorial

• “For both the government of Vietnam and its people, Senator McCain was a symbol of his generation of senators, and of the veterans of the Vietnam war,” Vietnam’s foreign minister Pham Binh Minh wrote in a condolence book at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi on Monday, adding:

“It was he who took the lead in significantly healing the wounds of war, and normalizing and promoting the comprehensive Vietnam-U.S. partnership."

• Both Vietnamese and U.S. citizens have also been paying their respects at a monument on the shores of the Hanoi lake where McCain was captured. "On Oct 26, 1967, at Truc Bach Lake, the military and people of Hanoi arrested Major John Sidney McCain, a pilot of the American Navy's air force," it says on the sculpture, which depicts an airman with his hands above his head in front of a broken plane wing.

Military Attache Ton Tuan from U.S. Embassy places incense while he pays respect in memory of the late U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) at the McCain Memorial in Hanoi, Vietnam August 27, 2018. REUTERS/Kham.

• “Condolences to senator and war veteran John McCain, who greatly contributed to the normalization of Vietnam-U.S. relations,” said one message in Vietnamese, left at the sculpture attached to a bouquet of flowers on Monday, according to Reuters.

 —Josh Herman