Carol Shipp: The Forgotten First Wife

Did you know that Cindy McCain is not John McCain's first wife? Most people don't. It is not something that the McCain's have gone into great detail about and very little is known about or can be found out about Carol Shipp, John's first wife.

John McCain met Carol Shipp while he was a student at Annapolis in 1964. Carol was a model and single mother who, according to some reports, lost her first husband in Vietnam. The two were married July 3, 1965. John later adopted her sons, Doug, an airline pilot, and Andrew, a business executive, and in 1966 the two had a daughter Sidney Ann, who is in the music industry.

John and Carol divorced in 1980, several years after John, a Vietnam POW, was released.

Robert Tembergy, author of John McCain: An American Odyssey, wrote about the two in his book, "If there was a couple that deserved to make it it was John and Carol. They endured nearly 6 years of unspeakable traumas with courage and grace. (talking about John's years as a POW during which Carol was involved in a serious car accident that left her partially disabled) In the end it was not enough. The conventional view is that John came home not to the Long Tall Sally of his prison imagines, but to a real woman, older, shorter, and crippled. Before long he began to stray."

Oh where can I begin? First of all, John McCain was probably not quite the stud he was before he was held for those five years either. Seems to me he had to go through extensive surgeries and therapy to recover from his injuries. What are the lines to those vows, ....in sickness and in health... According to everything I found, Carol remained a faithful, steady support for her husband in some of the worst circumstances I can imagine, but she just wasn't the hot model he left behind anymore. No, kidding! She had gone through five years of hell, waking up everyday not knowing if her husband was alive or dead, not even fathoming what was being done to him, raising three young children, not to mention, almost being killed herself in a car accident that left her partially disabled.

In Temberg's same book, Carol talked about the break up of their marriage, "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or the Vietnam was. It might have happened even if John had not been gone. I attribute it more to John being 40 and wanting to be 25 again more than anything else."

What a woman! I'm not sure I could be so kind, but after the passing of time, it seems like she has let go of any bitterness that she once might have had and you have to applaud her for that. My thoughts on John wanting to be "25 again"? Oh well, you are not 25. You have a wife and children and that is the way life is. Grow up, get over yourself, and face your responsibility.

I don't want to make light of the fact that John McCain was held as a Vietnam POW and went through some of the most horrific things that anyone could think of. I was talking to my dad about this several months ago and he told me about how much war changes people. He also expressed just how much something like being held as a POW for that length of time could make you a different person. I know he is right, I know even from the books I have read about the Iraq war and the things that those men and women see could only change the way you looked at things and felt about things. He talked to me about how the men who came back from Vietnam were entirely different people especially those who were held as POWs. But I ask myself, does that release them from their responsibility and commitments that were made before they left? I can't believe that it does. And in John McCain's case, he completely denies that his leaving was even due to the war as he talked about in his book, Worth Fighting For where he said, "My marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing my finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine."

He also commented in his book, Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life, "Today in our psychoanalyzed society, sharing one's secret fears with others takes courage. So does escaping a failing marriage." Um, so does sticking with a failing marriage and making it work. Actually I think sticking with something takes more courage than leaving.

Very little is known about the woman who was married to John McCain first. She has stayed out of the press and out of the spotlight, which probably means, she has stayed out of trouble and has lead a quiet, decent life. If anyone ever hears anything else, let me know.