I'm a "phony" soldier...

...And I apparently don't know what war is like.

Thank you Megan McCain. You know your father is not the only one who's been to war and back. While your home may have turned into a warzone after he returned from the POW camp due to his PTSD and obvious mental and emotional problems from being tortured for 5 plus years.
I've got news for you there are plenty of us that know firsthand what war is like. Let me give you a little example.
You're riding around in an uparmored HMMWV with all your gear on which adds about 20 degrees to the 110 plus inside your vehicle. You're trying to look at the road ahead of you to insure that you don't run over an IED, but you cant see very well with the sweat, now at a constant downpour stinging your eyes.
You're nearly lulled to sleep by the hum of the engine when the 7 ton vehicle in front of you is suddenly lifted 15 feet off the ground and displaced 25 feet off the road by an explosion that shook your insides and left your ears ringing so you can barely hear. Knowing that it could be a complex attack, but you wouldn't be able to hear if they did shoot at you, you rush to the vehicle, but that IED contained accelerant for catching the vehicle on fire. The passenger managed to fall out of the vehicle on fire and is now dead. The smell of burning human flesh, hair, rubber, and cordite is now in the air and you have to fight back the reflex to puke. As you move toward the vehicle the flames are too intense and you are forced back and you have to hold your people back as they try to rush in to save their buddies, who, hopefully are already dead as the vehicle is completely engulfed in flames and the ammo could start cooking off at any moment. So, you have to watch and smell as 3 people burn to death and are sent to Valhalla on a pyre created by 30 dollars worth of explosives and a couple of pieces of copper wire, which defeated 500,000 dollars of technology and armor plating.

But Megan, I've-never-served-a-day-in-the-armed-forces-but-my-old-ass-Vietnam-Vet-father-did, McCain knows more about war than I. A two 15 month tour veteran of the unneccessary invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq where we stay even when the people and government of Iraq don't want us here.