we know his flame lives on in each of us. the years and days will not be the same without my dad but they will be good days because of the example he left for us. ofor our family your prayers are extremely appreciated. my father is gone and i miss him as only an adoring daughter can. but i take comfort in this. john mccain hero of the republic and to little girl wakes today to something more glorious than anything on this earth. today the warrior enters his true and external life, an eternal life greeted by those who have gone before him, rising to meet the author of all things. and then the dream has ended. again that statement from megan mccain, reaction to his death from his daughter. she is one of seven children that mccain leaves behinds from two different marriages and just now we have a statement from the
senator reed, a democrat, when he was speaking about senator mccain, the man he traveled with and went to vietnam with and traveled all over the world with and served in the armed services committee, you could see how sad senator reed was. i ve spoken over these past couple of days now with a bunch of leaders in the u.s. senate, democrats and republicans, everyone is going to be so concerned. it s not a huge surprise. he had a terminal form of brain cancer and he lived for 15 months with that brain tumor. normally that particular type of brain cancer, maybe you can live 14 months. he did live 13 months with it with treatment, but in the end this is what s going to happen.
his service in the u.s. military and navy and five 1/2 years he was a pow. but allf of us remember and it s hard to talk about this that in 2015 he was a candidate, he was in iowa and said john mccain was not a hero because he was a po it was just a sad, awful moment and he never regretted it. the president never apologized, never reached out. it was just a very, very disturbing moment in american history. glad he s issued a statement finally. the mccain family has made it clear they really don t want president trump to come to the funeral. they don t want him involleyballed. there is tension there and it certainly is understandability. and of course john mccain, he ran to be president twice. did not succeed but in 2008, the second ran the second time was in the race.
think i speak for everyone here at cnn, certainly everyone in the united states and around the world who knew him, admired him loved him. we express our deepest, deepest condolences to his very loving family. absolutely. do you have any memories that are top of mind of john mccain in the time that you covered him and knew him as a senator? you know years and years ago there was a democrat who was close and he was an anti-war protester. very out spoken, very active and as we know john mccain had been in the navy and was serving, flying missions in vietnam and eventually was a pow for more than five years. i remember that they became close in later years.
i think speaks so much to his character is he had declined an offer of early release because he wanted other people who had been prisoner longer to be let go first. it underscored the nature of this wonderful man that when he was a pow that his father, who was well-known, he was ready to be released even though there were other americans held longer and mccain said that s not happening. i ll wait my turn. i m not going to get special service because my father is a retired u.s. navy admiral. he stayed put. he didn t have to. he could have left. it shows what kind of man he was. he was a true american hero, someone that was so widely respected. the other day, yesterday, i was interviewing senator jack reed of rhode island.