hours, got up and we went over to happy hour and he regaled everybody with stories of his crash. i don t think until actually the force stahl, which was miraculous that he survived, that he began to take his military career seriously. it was july fwhooint, 1967, his first combat mission aboard the u.s.s. forceal. a plane on the deck fired a missile which struck the fuel tank of the plane mccain was in. mccain escaped the deadly inferno, but others didn t. the fire spread across the ship s deck killing 134 men, injuring hundreds of others, and destroying 20 planes. it was terrible. i ll never forget some hours after the fire was at least