Sen, John McCain honored at US Capitol ceremony
Sen. John McCain was honored at a moving ceremony at the U.S. Capitol Friday morning, where top congressional leaders, as well as Vice President Mike Pence, spoke.
The six-term Republican senator from Arizona, who passed away last weekend, lied in state under the U.S. Capitol Rotunda — only the 31st person to ever receive that incredible honor — for a ceremony and public visitation Friday as lawmakers paid their respects.
Moments before the ceremony began, rain poured down as U.S. service members escorted McCain’s flag-draped casket up the Capitol steps, as senators and members of Congress — in addition to McCain's widow, Cindy, his children, and his 106-year-old mother Roberta — awaited his arrival.
After a brief invocation by the House chaplain, House Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke, lauding his former colleague and friend.
"We celebrate six decades of devotion to the American idea and the cause of human freedom," McConnell said. "Generations of Americans will continue to marvel at the man who lies before us."
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who addressed the group next, called McCain "one of the bravest souls our nation has ever produced."
"However you choose to do your part, I hope you choose to do it the way he did," Ryan said.
Later, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calf., were expected to join McConnell, Ryan and Pence in laying wreathes.
The ceremony was just the latest in a week’s worth of them for the statesman, former prisoner of war and two-time presidential candidate.
The day before, in Phoenix, McCain was eulogized as a “true American hero” at a crowded church service for the maverick politician that ended with the playing of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
And on Saturday, a procession is scheduled to pause at the Vietnam Memorial before a service at the Washington National Cathedral. Burial at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is scheduled to take place Sunday.
