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John McCain Dies At 81: The World Reacts To The Death Of An American Hero

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 13:48 PST, Aug 25, 2018

The world is mourning the death of John McCain just one day after his family announced he would stop receiving treatments for brain cancer. McCain passed away late in the day on Saturday, August 25 at his ranch in Sedona, Arizona, according to CNN.

The 81-year-old Arizona Senator lived many lives as a bomber pilot in the Navy, a Vietnam prisoner of war, a U.S. senator, a GOP presidential candidate, and a family man. But John McCain will always be best remembered as an American hero.

“I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn’t my own man anymore; I was my country’s,” McCain said in his 2008 Republican National Convention speech.

Reaction to the death of John McCain came swiftly on Saturday night. President Donald Trump issued his “deepest sympathies” to the McCain family on Twitter, as did President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, who released a joint statement on the Senator’s passing. President Bill Clinton praised McCain for his “heroic service in the Navy and 35 years in Congress,” while President George W. Bush remembered McCain as “a man of deep conviction and a patriot of the highest order.”

Countless U.S. Senators and other political figures took to social media to remember the late war hero and politician, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who described McCain as “a man of decency and a friend of mine.”

Cindy McCain, the late Senator’s wife of 38 years, wrote that she is “heartbroken” by his death, but was comforted by the fact that her husband died as he lived his life — on his own terms and surrounded by his loved ones.

John McCain’s daughter, Meghan, posted a poignant tribute to her father writing that while the world has lost the “hero of the republic… the warrior now enters his true and eternal life.”

Hollywood stars, even those who didn’t always agree with McCain’s politics, also paid their respects, as did McCain’s favorite baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. You can see the reaction to the death of John McCain below.

https://twitter.com/PorterMediaNews/status/1033529576775999488

McCain, who was nicknamed The Maverick due to his willingness to go head-to-head with fellow members of his party, died at 4:28 p.m. on Saturday, according to NBC News.

On Friday, the McCain family announced that the Senator, “with his usual strength of will,” had decided to stop treatment for the stage-four glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer he had been battling since last summer.

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