Is John McCain a hero or not?

Donald Trump says he's not and I tend to agree with him, but not to badmouth McCain. He was a pilot who was in the wrong spot at the wrong time in the wrong war. He was shot down and captured. As a POW he suffered. I saw him behind home plate at a Diamondback game this weekend and he looks like a nice guy, a regular guy, out with his wife at a baseball game. My problem is with the word “hero”. America has the biggest, most over-bloated military in the world and the Pentagon likes it that way. But the use of words like hero and freedom has the smell of stale orthodoxy that Orwell warned about. So what we have is a citizen like The Donald speaking his mind and getting his taste of the “Two minutes of hate” found in 1984. Samuel Johnson said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel and the Republican field is certainly full of first rate scoundrels and third rate leaders. If you are in the lobby of my old club in NY, the Yale Club, you will see a statue of Nathan Hale, a 21 year old patiot who was executed by the British in the Revolutionary War. He said, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” He was a hero.