During a recent interview with Marie Claire, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) wife Cindy suggested that her husband has never had PTSD symptoms because “he was trained.” She also added that symptoms such as “cold sweats in the middle of the night” are reserved for the “the 18-year-olds who were drafted”:
Q: You met your husband after his POW days. To what extent is that still with you – or is it a part of history?
McCAIN: My husband will be the first one to tell you that that’s in the past. Certainly it’s a part of who he is, but he doesn’t dwell on it. It’s not part of a daily experience that we experience or anything like that. But it has shaped him. It has made him the leader that he is.
Q: But no cold sweats in the middle of the night?
McCAIN: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. My husband, he’d be the first one to tell you that he was trained to do what he was doing. The guys who had the trouble were the 18-year-olds who were drafted. He was trained, he went to the Naval Academy, he was a trained United States naval officer, and so he knew what he was doing.
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