Sen. John McCain was finally laid to rest on Sunday at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
McCain has been honored in a number of services and ceremonies since he passed away last Saturday, Aug. 25. Sunday’s gathering was a private one, according to a report by Fox News, and the last goodbye for the lifelong public servant. He was laid to rest in a plot overlooking the Severn River, rather than inside Arlington National Cemetary.
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The small farewell comes after a much larger funeral on Saturday, where Senator McCain was honored by former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Despite coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both leaders voiced their respect for McCain, who himself nearly made it to the Oval Office in the 2008 election.
“So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage,” said President Obama. “It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.”
Many assumed that he was referring to President Donald Trump, who was pointedly not invited to the service. President Trump and Senator McCain had a harsh and combative relationship, with the president going so far as to mock McCain for having been taken prisoner during the Vietnam War. President Bush seemed to allude to the Trump administration’s blunt comportion as well.
“John’s voice will always come as a whisper over our shoulder — we are better than this, America is better than this,” he said.
However, both former presidents were overshadowed by the senator’s daughter, Meghan McCain, who made no secret about her opinion of the current political landscape, nor her father’s place in it.
“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” she declared.
“He was a great man. We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness,” she added later. “The real thing. Not cheap rhetoric from men that will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly.”
McCain’s father and grandfather are both buried at Arlington, as both were admirals themselves. McCain is survived by his mother, 106 years old, as well as his wife and five children. McCainwas 81 years old at the time of his passing.
