A senator’s job is to represent the people living in his or her state in the United States Senate. Part of this job is to write and vote on new laws. John McCain is the senator for the United States. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Arizona in 1982 and was first elected to the United State Senate in 1986, when he began his long tenure.  He was the Republican Party’s nominee for president in the 2008 election, but he currently serves as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services.

John McCain continued his father and grandfather’s legacy into the United States Navy, graduating from the U.S. Navy Academy in 1958. During the Vietnam War, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. Taken prisoner after his plane was shot down, he suffered five and a half years of torture and confinement before his release in 1973.  John refused an out-of-sequence early reparation offer. His war wounds left him with lifelong physical limits.

Then he retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona, where he entered politics. Has been awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.