John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential election. McCain retired from the Navy as a Captain in 1981. He then moved to Arizona and began a career in politics. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone at Coco Solo Naval Air Station. His father, John S. McCain, Jr. was a naval officer stationed there at the time. In 1951, the family settled in Northern Virginia, and McCain attended Episcopal High School, a private preparatory… boarding school in Alexandria. McCain entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1954. He fought in the Vietnam War and was a prisoner of war (POW) beginning on October 26, 1967. In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years. In total, McCain was a POW for five and a half years. He was released on March 14, 1973. In 2014, McCain wrote Faith of My Fathers with Mark Salter. It became a New York Times bestseller.