During a conversation about philanthropy and global issues at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Former President Bill Clinton made some comments about the lingering psychological impact of having been a prisoner of war. The context was a discussion about former South African President Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned, unjustly and harshly, for many years by the whites-only, apartheid South African government.
Former President Clinton, praising Mandela’s great, reconciling leadership of South Africa, spoke of Mandela’s astonishing ability to forgive his oppressive captors. He asked Mandela how he could forgive them, and Mandela reportedly responded, “I felt anger and hatred and fear. And I realized that if I kept hating them once I got in that car and got through the gate, I would still be in prison. So, I let it go, because I wanted to be free.”

So far, no harm, no foul. Unfortunately, President Clinton then went on to practice psychology without a license. Perhaps attempting to justify his own infamous temper, Clinton observed, “Every living soul on the planet has some highly justified anger. Everybody.”
Then President Clinton observed, “If you know anybody that was ever a POW for any length of time, you will see that you go along for months or maybe even years, and then something will happen, it’ll trigger all those bad dreams, and they’ll come back, and it may last 30 seconds.”
Was President Clinton questioning the emotional stability of another famous POW, Senator McCain? I don’t know. However, I do have some unsolicited advice for former President Clinton. Go out of your way in the future to avoid comments that could be construed as criticizing a genuine Vietnam War hero. When you lied to avoid service in that war (some would call it draft-dodging) you disqualified yourself from such criticism. As my grandmother used to say, “Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
By the way, people who have heard Senator McCain speak about his forgiveness of his Vietnamese captors (as I have been privileged to do) marvel at his Mandela-like ability to forgive and move forward with his life, despite bearing in his body permanent physical handicaps of his torture.