--- title: John McCain Called Families of Late USS John McCain Sailors description: In honor of a new film about John McCain, his speechwriter shares a story about how the Senator paid tribute to sailors killed on duty. canonical: https://time.com/5290796/john-mccain-hbo-documentary-story/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-28T16:00:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:24.209Z article:section: History og:title: John McCain Called Families of Late USS John McCain Sailors og:description: His speechwriter shares a story about how the Senator paid tribute to sailors killed on duty og:url: https://time.com/5290796/john-mccain-hbo-documentary-story/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c39dca49835e740/698931984ee262c078311ebf/mccain-john-memorial1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: mccain-john-memorial og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John McCain Called Families of Late USS John McCain Sailors twitter:description: His speechwriter shares a story about how the Senator paid tribute to sailors killed on duty twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c39dca49835e740/698931984ee262c078311ebf/mccain-john-memorial1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Moving Way John McCain Honored Sailors Killed on the Ship That Bears His Name ## Video: Sen. John McCain, Ill With Brain Cancer, Tells Western Allies 'I Am Counting on You... to Never Give Up' [Watch (HLS stream): Sen. John McCain, Ill With Brain Cancer, Tells Western Allies 'I Am Counting on You... to Never Give Up'](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/V3ock2Uh.m3u8) (7:46)  _Published 2018-02-20. Cindy McCain accepted an award on behalf of her husband John McCain, who is ill with brain cancer, on Saturday night at the Munich Security Conference_  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer May 28, 2018 4:00 PM UTC  U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ)Clair Popkin—Courtesy of HBO  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer May 28, 2018 4:00 PM UTC Every year on [Memorial Day](http://time.com/5291026/memorial-day-started-birthplace-history/), the last Monday in May, Americans take time to honor their fellow citizens who have died serving in the armed forces. But that doesn’t mean there’s only one day on which those Americans are remembered. Case in point: this poignant anecdote about Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), himself a Navy veteran who spent more than five years in the prisoner-of-war camp known as the “Hanoi Hilton” during the Vietnam War. Memorial Day marks the premiere of an HBO documentary about McCain, which features his longtime speechwriter Mark Salter, who also co-wrote McCain’s latest [memoir. ](http://time.com/5287133/john-mccain-memoir-book-quotes/)Speaking about the documentary, TIME asked Salter to recall a favorite memory about McCain, and Salter mentioned something McCain did last summer, after 10 crew members were killed when the destroyer USS _John S. McCain_ — which is [named after the Senator’s father and grandfather, both Navy admirals](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/world/asia/uss-john-mccain-collision-merchant-ship.html) — [collided with a merchant vessel](http://time.com/5006790/pacific-navy-collisions-avoidable/) east of Singapore. Salter said he had gone to have dinner with McCain at his Phoenix home. The Senator was a few weeks into [treatment for](http://time.com/5260113/john-mccain-health-book/) the [brain cancer](http://time.com/5260113/john-mccain-health-book/) he continues to battle and, Salter says, the effects were starting to be visible to those who spent time with him. But, Salter says, he found that McCain had nonetheless given himself a difficult task. “He was sitting at a table calling the families of every member on the USS _John S. McCain_ that had been killed in that accident to express his condolences,” says Salter. “He’s not the Secretary of the Navy. He’s not the Secretary of Defense. He’s not the President of the United States. \[He’s\] just one American recognizing the sacrifice that other American families had just made and wanting them to know that he was thinking about them, wanting to know — what did they need? What could he do for them? Then he’d call his staff and say, ‘this family wants this, see what we can do to get it for them.’ “No fanfare, drew no attention to it. Just a guy being decent at a moment when he had a lot of things to deal with.” The HBO [documentary](https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/john-mccain-for-whom-the-bell-tolls) _John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls,_ which also features insight from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Joe Biden, premieres at 8 p.m. on Monday. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5290796/john-mccain-hbo-documentary-story/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5290796/john-mccain-hbo-documentary-story/"},"headline":"The Moving Way John McCain Honored Sailors Killed on the Ship That Bears His Name","datePublished":"2018-05-28T16:00:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:53:24.209Z","description":"In honor of a new film about John McCain, his speechwriter shares a story about how the Senator paid tribute to sailors killed on duty","url":"https://time.com/5290796/john-mccain-hbo-documentary-story/","keywords":["politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0c39dca49835e740/698931984ee262c078311ebf/mccain-john-memorial1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Olivia B. 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