Role models

Don’t call John McCain a hero. Never mind that he was a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. Never mind that his plane was shot down, and he was kept a prisoner of the North Vietnamese for 5 1/2 years. Never mind that his captors offered him freedom, but he refused to leave his friends in prison.

The Republican senator from Arizona winces when asked if he’s a hero. “Absolutely not…. It has been my great privilege to serve in the company of heroes.”

McCain, who ran for president in 2000 and might run again in 2008, is more comfortable talking about others as heroes – the people whose stories he tells in a new kids’ book he wrote with Mark Salter.

The book, almost didn’t happen, McCain recalled recently during a chat in his Senate office.

“We worked on the book for three or four months and then scrapped everything we wrote because it was … condescending. The last thing any young person wants is to be lectured at.” McCain and Salter reworked the book, McCain said, because “all of us – a person at my advanced age (he’s 69) or a young person – need role models. They help make up your character.”

The book tells the stories of 34 people, each with a characteristic McCain admires — and thinks might be worth copying. Some familiar names are included, among them Pat Tillman, the pro football player who joined the Army Rangers and was killed in Afghanistan. “His story tells what real courage is all about,” McCain said.

Martin Luther King Jr. also is profiled in the book. “I always thought his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech was his greatest work. Then I read this letter from the Birmingham jail that we included in the book,” McCain said as he flipped through the pages looking for the chapter on King. McCain began reading King’s words on the effect segregation had on the civil rights leader’s children.

McCain has more heroes whose stories he wants to tell. On his office wall is a framed photograph of a handsome man in military uniform. He’s William Ravenel, McCain’s high school English teacher and football coach. “He made me understand the beauty of Shakespeare. He was the guy I wanted to be. He was an incredible role model. He died while I was still in prison,” the senator said softly.

McCain talks without bitterness of being tortured as a prisoner of war. As for his decision not to accept his captors’ offer of freedom: “That’s a decision every kid understands. All my friends were there…. How could I go back home and enjoy life, with my friends still back there (in Vietnam)?”

Those who work with McCain describe him as having a little boy inside who is trying to get out. That little boy was easy to see as the senator showed off some of his office toys, including a doll of President Theodore Roosevelt holding a teddy bear. “It’s amazing how many people don’t know the story of the teddy bear,” he said.

McCain hopes that young readers — and their parents — find role models in the sometimes sad, often funny stories in his book. He has advice to help kids be their own role models in difficult situations:

“Many times we are tempted to do something we know is wrong, and we know no one else will know about it. But our parents, teachers and friends teach us something: You will know that you’ve done something wrong. That makes all the difference.”