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Longest-serving US POW remembers Sen. John McCain

Bill Robinson said he can recall the day McCain was captured in Vietnam in 1967 while serving as a Navy pilot.

Madisonville — Retired U.S. Air Force Capt. Bill Robinson still remembers the day he enlisted in the Air Force.

"The first day I put on a uniform I had decided I had found a home and I planned to stay there awhile," Robinson said.

He said in April 1965 he was deployed to Vietnam.

Five months later on Sept. 20 he was shot down and captured in Ha Tinh Province, North Vietnam. He would go on to spend 7 1/2 years as a prisoner of war, spending time in the so-called Hanoi Hilton, the war detention center that the late Sen. John McCain was held in.

He kept focusing on his future release while held.

"I narrowed my scope to three days: Yesterday, I was shot down, today's today and tomorrow I'm going to the house," he said.

Robinson said he can recall the day in October 1967 that McCain, then a Navy pilot, was captured. Forces shot down his plane while it was on a bombing run, and it ended up in a lake near Hanoi.

McCain was held more than five years as a prisoner of war.

"I always get asked, did you know Sen. McCain? And I say yes, I told them I was on the welcoming committee when he showed up because I has been there two years before he got there," Robinson said.

He interacted little with McCain, however, because prisoners typically were kept away from each other.

At the very moment the world found out Saturday night that McCain had passed, Robinson felt the impact.

"It was kind of like losing a brother," Robinson said. "Sen. McCain faced a lot of challenges from the near death experience he had in Hanoi to the poor medical care he received that made it difficult for him to walk and raise his hand."

The senator is set to lie in state in the Arizona State Capitol on Wednesday, which would have been the day he turned 82. McCain will later lie in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, according to a statement released by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, though a date has not been specified.

Robinson said he has a lot to remember Sen. McCain by and so does the rest of the country.

"As an individual he was highly respected and that's what we each want to be is respected," he said.

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