After five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, naval aviator John McCain returned home.

This is the story of McCain's American journey and the character lessons he learned from an intriguing array of people, including baseball legend Ted Williams, President Theodore Roosevelt, Congressman Morris Udall, Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, and visionary aviation proponent Billy Mitchell, who personifies McCain's ideal of what a true maverick is. "Every naval officer who served between the two world wars knew who Billy Mitchell was, " McCain writes. "And most of them hated him." Yet it was Mitchell who made military leaders realize that their vaunted battleships were vulnerable to air attack and who laid the foundation for the creation of the air force.

McCain interweaves stories of his favorite mavericks with his life story -- his final days in the navy; his first run for Congress; his education as a U.S. senator; and his electrifying run for the presidency in 2000. Through it all, McCain has maintained a sense of humor and a flair for candor. As in

John McCain is a United States senator from Arizona. He retired from the navy as a captain in 1981, and was first elected to Congress in 1982. He is currently serving his third term in the Senate. He and his wife, Cindy, live with their children in Phoenix, Arizona. With Mark Salter, he is at work on his third book, about courage, which Random House will publish in the fall of 2003.<br><br>Mark Salter has worked on Senator McCain’s staff for thirteen years and is the co-author of Faith of My Fathers. Hired as a legislative assistant in 1989, he has served as the senator’s administrative assistant since 1993. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Diane, and their two daughters.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>