 In late August 1968 , a program of vigorous torture methods began on McCain . The North Vietnamese used rope bindings to put him into prolonged , painful positions and severely beat him every two hours , all while he was suffering from dysentery . His right leg was reinjured , his ribs were cracked , some teeth were broken at the gumline , and his left arm was re @-@ fractured . Lying in his own waste , his spirit was broken ; the beginnings of a suicide attempt were stopped by guards . After four days of this , McCain signed and taped an anti @-@ American propaganda " confession " that said , in part , " I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate . I almost died , and the Vietnamese people saved my life , thanks to the doctors . " He used stilted Communist jargon and ungrammatical language to signal that the statement was forced . McCain was haunted then and since with the belief that he had dishonored his country , his family , his comrades and himself by his statement , but as he later wrote , " I had learned what we all learned over there : Every man has his breaking point . I had reached mine . " Two weeks later his captors tried to force him to sign a second statement ; his will to resist restored , he refused . He sometimes received two to three beatings per week because of his continued resistance ; the sustained mistreatment went on for over a year . His refusals to cooperate , laced with loud obscenities directed towards his guards , were often heard by other POWs . His boxing experience from his Naval Academy days helped him withstand the battering , and the North Vietnamese did not break him again . 
