Goldfarb, at the McCain Report, talks to another POW, Bud Day, one of McCain's closest allies, who backs McCain's story:
"We were bringing each other up to date, he was telling me how he [McCain] had been tortured," Day said. The guards had "busted his arm," and "John was complaining that they'd treated him like an animal." Day said "the only friendly thing the [guards] ever did was hit me on the leg instead of on the head." But, according to Day, McCain wouldn't condemn them all, telling the other men of the occasional act of decency he'd witnessed from his captors. Day says McCain told him how one of those guards had "made a cross with his foot and wiped it out."
So the ad imagery with the stick is wrong, according to Day. And no Christmas dating.