(Image source from: People.Com)
John McCain, who underwent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam earlier becoming the Republican presidential nominee in the year 2008 and for over 90 years serving Arizona on Capitol Hill, died on Saturday at age 81.
McCain died at 4:28 p.m. MST, following a battle with brain cancer, his office announced. His spouse and further household members were with him.
"Senator John Sidney McCain III died at 4:28 pm on August 25, 2018. With the senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family," his office said in a statement.
"At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 60 years."
"Sen McCain, thank you for your service," read a sign near the driveway of his home in a rural part of Sedona, Arizona, television footage showed, as a police escort accompanied the hearse that was to carry his body and local residents came bearing flowers for the late political titan.
While he had many differences with fellow politicians, the Republican stalwart's integrity was not a question, and condolences came instantly from the highest reaches of American politics after his passing.
Former President Barack Obama, the Democrat to whom McCain lost the presidency in the 2008 elections, said: "we are all in his debt."
"John McCain and I were members of different generations, came from completely different backgrounds and competed at the highest level of politics," Obama said in a statement.
"But we shared, for all our differences, a fidelity to something higher - the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched and sacrificed."
McCain, who was tortured during his five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, earlier this week halted treatment from the hostile form of cancer his family saying "the progress of the disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict."
Looming large in debates over war and peace and the moral direction of the nation, he had spent over three decades in the Senate. Prior to joining the upper chamber, he served as the U.S. representative from 1983 to 1987.
President Donald Trump, who once mocked McCain's war record, said he sent his "deepest sympathies and respect."
McCain had been a rare and outspoken Republican critic of Trump, accusing him of "naivete," "egotism" and of sympathizing with autocrats.
McCain had not been on the Senate floor in months, remaining at his Arizona home for treatment of glioblastoma, which is the similar form of brain cancer that took the life of another Senate giant, in 2009 - Democrat Ted Kennedy.
By Somaya
