 McCain was promoted to commander effective July 1973 and attended the National War College in Fort McNair in Washington , D.C. during the 1973 – 1974 academic year . There he intensively studied the history of Vietnam and the French and American wars there , and wrote " The Code of Conduct and the Vietnam Prisoners of War " , a long paper on the Vietnam POW experience as a test of the U.S. Code of Conduct . By the time he graduated , he concluded that mistakes by American political and military leaders had doomed the war effort . He accepted the right of the anti @-@ war movement in the U.S. to have exercised their freedom to protest , and he adopted a live @-@ and @-@ let @-@ live attitude towards those who had evaded the draft . Nor did the vast changes in American social mores that had taken place during his absence bother him , as it did many other former POWs . McCain returned to Saigon in November 1974 ; he and a couple of other former POWs received the National Order of Vietnam , that country 's highest honor . He also spoke at the South Vietnamese war college , five months before Saigon fell . McCain resolved not to become a " professional POW " but to move forward and rebuild his life . Few thought McCain could fly again , but he was determined to try , and during this time he engaged in nine months of grueling , painful physical therapy , especially to get his knees to bend again . 
