When I was a prisoner of war, the Vietnamese went to great lengths to restrict the news from home to the statements and activities of prominent opponents to the war. They wanted us to believe that America had forgotten us. They never mentioned Ronald Reagan to us, or played his speeches over the camp loudspeakers. No matter. We knew about him. New additions to our ranks told us how the governor and Mrs. Reagan were committed to our liberation and our cause.
When we came home, we were eager to meet the Reagans to thank them for their concern. But more than gratitude drew us to them. We were drawn to them because they were among the few prominent Americans who did not subscribe to the then-fashionable notion that America had entered her inevitable decline.
We came home to a country that had lost a war and the best sense of itself; a country beset by social and economic problems. Assassinations, riots, scandals, contempt for political, religious and educational institutions gave the appearance that we had become a dysfunctional society. Patriotism was sneered at, the military scorned. And the world anticipated the collapse of our global influence. The great, robust, confident Republic that had given its name to the last century seemed exhausted.
Ronald Reagan believed differently. He possessed an unshakable faith in America's greatness, past and future, that proved more durable than the prevailing political sentiments of the time. And his confidence was a tonic to men who had come home eager to put the war behind us and for the country to do likewise.
Our country has a long and honorable history. A lost war or any other calamity should not destroy our confidence or weaken our purpose. We were a good country before Vietnam, and we are a good country after Vietnam. In all of history, you cannot find a better one. Of that, Ronald Reagan was supremely confident, and he became president to prove it.
His was a faith that shouted at tyrants to "tear down this wall." Such faith, such patriotism requires a great deal of love to profess. And I will always revere him for it.
When walls were all I had for a world, I learned about a man whose love of freedom gave me hope in a desolate place. His faith honored us, as it honored all Americans, as it honored all freedom-loving people. Let us honor his memory by holding his faith as our own, and let us, too, tear down walls to freedom. That is what Americans do when they believe in themselves.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
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