Vet gives McCain inspiring quote

Republican John McCain, campaigning for support in Iowa's January caucuses, got an inspirational early return Monday from a fellow military veteran.

In the Main Street Cafe in Allison, a man wearing an Air Force sweat shirt stood to give McCain a framed quote by Booker T. Washington: "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed."

Nathan Merrill, 26, said the quote was deeply meaningful to him and he wanted McCain to have it.

"First, I feel like I should salute you," Merrill said as he handed McCain the framed quote.

McCain, who was a prisoner of War in Vietnam from 1967 to 1973, read the quote aloud. He said he would place it on his desk in the U.S. Senate and in the Oval Office if he wins the presidency.

"I support my country first and then I support McCain because he is good for my country," said Merrill, who said he served in the Air Force with the 7th Airlift Squadron at McCord Air Force Base in Washington from 2000 to 2002.

At another stop, in Iowa Falls, Duane Jackson, 72, who retired from the Navy in 1972 after 21 years, said McCain's long career in the military and in public service makes him the best candidate.

"I think he's got the best background of anybody going," said Jackson, who lives in Webster City.

McCain's comments, especially on torture, seemed to resonate with military vets and current National Guard members who attended campaign events during the day.

The Arizona senator specifically criticized fellow GOP presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson for their lack of military experience and failure to denounce the interrogation technique of waterboarding as torture.

McCain also said that members of the Bush administration should be held responsible as war criminals if waterboarding or other banned activities continued after Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, signed into law in 2005, and the Military Commissions Act, which was signed by President Bush in 2006.

"After we passed the Detainee Treatment Act, the Military Commissions Act then obviously anybody who violated any law of the United States would have to be held responsible," he said.

"That's not the kind of country America is," he told a gathering of about 30 residents at the cafe in Allison, a north central farming town of 1,000 people. The U.S., he said, should take the high ground "and not do the kinds of things its enemies do."