The former presidential nominee died at 81 after battling glioblastoma for a year.
- August 27, 2018
AceShowbiz - John McCain, the U.S. Senator who took on Barack Obama for the presidency in 2008, has died.
The outspoken Republican politician passed away on Saturday, August 25, a day after opting to cease treatment for stage-four brain cancer. He was 81.
He was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, last summer (17) and "surpassed expectations for his survival", according to a family statement confirming his death.
Born in August, 1936 at the U.S. air base in Panama, McCain followed in his father and grandfather's footsteps and enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1954.
He fought in Vietnam and was taken prisoner in 1967, after his plane was shot down by a missile.
McCain was held captive at Hanoi's notorious Hoa Lo prison, where he spent more than five years, much of that time in solitary confinement for refusing to co-operate with his captors.
He was released in March, 1973 and took on political duties, becoming the naval liaison to the U.S. Senate in 1977, before ultimately retiring from duty in 1981.
McCain was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in Arizona in 1982, and served two terms before becoming a state senator in 1986.
He ran against George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, and won the party vote eight years later, when he challenged President Barack Obama.
He served as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, and was a member of the Senate committees on Indian Affairs and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
