On August 25th, 2018, John McCain passed away at the age of 81, just a few days shy of his 82nd birthday.

Perhaps you remember him as a long time Arizona state Senator. He served from 1987, all the way up until his death, just this year, in 2018. Or perhaps, you remember when he lost the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination to non-other than former President George W Bush.

Perhaps, you remember his run against Former President Barack Obama in 2008 and subsequently lost that race as well. Even then, perhaps you remember him for the comments Donald Trump made regarding John McCain's time as a POW. At the very least, you hopefully remember his iconic thumbs down on the Senate floor, when he voted to keep Obamacare.

There is so much more in his 81 years than just the events listed above.

A caveat: I do not seek to deify the man, I do not seek to justify the many vile things he said. But I do not seek to vilify him either. I only aim to respect a man who spent his entire life serving his country.

John Sidney McCain III was born on a military base, into a heavily military family. McCain lived in the shadow of two war heroes and was bounced around from military base to military base as a child. He made himself known as a rebel at prep schools by smoking cigarettes and violating dress codes with his jacket that was barely more than a rag. His peers from the time remembered him as something of a punk. Described as having "constructive irreverence" McCain was a wrestler in school and in his free time, got up to no good, just as you could imagine a military brat at a preparatory school doing.

He enlisted in the Navy after his time at school was over and made his way up the ranks, all while swilling booze like a sailor. Sen McCain himself admitted that he wasn't the best flier, and wasn't there for the flying in the Navy as much as he was there to enjoy the off time as a Navy pilot. That was until the Vietnam war rolled around, and he enlisted to fly in the war. After McCain survived the fire of the USS Forrester, he expressed reluctance to continue to dropping napalm on Vietnam, showing that the man had a willingness to speak out against his own military.

As Donald Trump rolled in the money provided to him from the book,"The Art of the Deal" McCain was captured after his plane crashed in a lake in North Vietnam. When he managed to swim to shore, he was greeted by a group of North Vietnamese soldiers who captured him, interrogated him, and tortured him for information. His knee and both arms had been broken in the crash, along with a smashed shoulder, ankle and groin from a rifle butt from the Vietnamese soldiers who had found him. Initially, McCain said that he would give them the information they desired if they gave him proper medical care. Neither parts of the deal went through.

Eventually, McCain was even offered an early release from his captors once they had learned who his father was (an Admiral, none the less) which would force him to criminalize his country and violate the US Navy's Code of Honor. He spent five and a half years in Vietnam as a Prisoner of War, a quarter of his military career which then Presidential candidate, Trump disrespected and criticized his capture, when he avoided the draft.

With his military career done, McCain turned to politics, where he used insensitive racial slurs to describe Asians, and as a part of the Keating Five, voted against giving Rev. Martin Luther King Jr a National holiday, while backing other Reagan era policies. He became Chairman of Senate Commerce, and then years later, a Senator. In the 90's, he supported the bombing of Baghdad and continued to support such acts after the events of September, 11th 2001.

Both of his Presidential campaigns were unapologetic in their conservative views. In the year 2000, he lost the Republican nomination to George W Bush. In 2008, he would lose the Presidential race against Barack Obama.

Despite his discriminatory racial views of both the Middle East and Asia, in 2008 John McCain defended Obama from his own supporter's flawed claims that Obama was an Arab, and therefore, a terrorist.

In his concession speech to President Obama, he asked the nation to move forward and sent the utmost respect to Obama,"Tonight — tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Sen. Obama, I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president."

John McCain has asked that both of the men he lost the Oval Office to, Bush and Obama to deliver the eulogies at his funeral. The epitome of a respectful loser.

While he was not a perfect person, or perhaps, in your eyes, not even a good person.

Regardless of how the content of his character is judged, John Sidney McCain III joins the ranks of other great American men and should be simultaneously criticized and judged as such.