I don't know how many times I saw the video in this post while I was in the Navy. It is a very important part of U.S. Naval history. Not once in all those viewings did I ever hear anyone claim that John McCain was responsible for the fire.

Now I have. A Free Republic user warned of a smear campaign by Lane Anderson of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Lane, he said, was making the claim that John McCain started the USS Forrestal fire.

After a little searching, I found this:

More important than marital issues is his competance in military matters. Google {USS Forrestal Fire John McCain} to learn more about the pilot that lost five planes and set a supercarrier on fire!

Lane

If you click the link, you can see it is Lane Anderson.

Say what you want about John McCain, but he didn't start the Forrestal Fire. Via the Chief of Naval Information:

It is not a story about just a few individuals. Or ten. Or twenty. Or fifty. It is the story of hundreds of officers and enlisted men who were molded by disaster into a single cohesive force determined to accomplish one mission: Save their ship and their shipmates.

It is the story of the acts of heroism they performed-acts so commonplace, accomplished with such startling regularity, that it will be impossible to chronicle all of them. It will be impossible for a very simple reason:All of them will never be known.

Lt. Cmdr. Robert "Bo" Browning one of the pilots due for launch with many others, he was seated in the cockpit of his fueled and armed Skyhawk; the plane was spotted way aft, to port. Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain III said later he heard a "whooshy" sound then a "low-order explosion" in front of him. Suddenly, two A-4s ahead of his plane were engulfed in flaming jet fuel -- JP-5 -- spewed from them. A bomb dropped to the deck and rolled about six feet and came to rest in a pool of burning fuel.

The awful conflagration, which was to leave 132 Forrestal crewmen dead, 62 more injured and two missing and presumed dead, had begun.

I thought that the left had reached rock bottom when they made the claims that McCain had it easy in the Hanoi Hilton and collaborated with the enemy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.

Blaming him for the death of 132 sailors is so far out there that it is beyond imagination.

Cross posted at All American Blogger, where you can find other great original articles.