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McCain’s wife visits US charity in Vietnam 23rd June 2008
John
McCain’s wife on Thursday visited a US charity working in Vietnam as
part of her Asian tour to promote the Virginia-based Operation Smile
charity. Cindy McCain, 54, visited a hospital where Operation Smile was
arranging for children with facial deformities to receive free plastic
surgery aboard US Navy hospital ship USNS Mercy, docked off Nha Trang.
She met children, including Le Thi Phuoc, an 11-year-old girl born with
a cleft lip and cleft palate whose life-changing surgery was organized
by the US couple. McCain recounted how she and her husband first heard
about Phuoc in 1997 from the girl’s relative, who they met by chance in
an Arizonan restaurant. The McCains had raised funds to help Phuoc when
she was a baby. Cindy McCain flew to Vietnam to bring her to the US,
where she underwent corrective surgery and stayed at their family home
for several months. “He (the relative) came to me with a picture and
said, ‘Can you help me, can you help me with this little girl?’” she
said. “And I said ‘sure’ and I came and I was able to find her. So when
she was a baby we had her cleft palate fixed, and now look at her!”
“Thanks to the operation she looks prettier now,” the girl’s father, Le
Van Than, told AFP. “She has a chance to be loved by many people.” As
the media crowded around McCain, a former beauty queen and wealthy
heiress, Operation Smile chief medical officer Randy Sherman said the
candidate’s wife was deeply committed to charity work. “Cindy McCain has
been involved with charities for quite some time and has given a great
deal of attention to kids like this,” he said.
McCain’s staff stressed that her visit was private and not related to
the political campaign of her 71-year-old husband, the presumptive
presidential nominee of the Republican Party. She will also visit
Thailand and Cambodia during her trip to Asia, on which she has been
accompanied by Meghan, the couple’s 23-year-old daughter.
When he was a pilot in the Vietnam War, John McCain was shot down over
Hanoi in 1967 and jailed for five and a half years, mostly in the
infamous “Hanoi Hilton.” He was later instrumental in re-establishing
bilateral ties between Washington and Hanoi. “I’m sorry my husband is
not with us,” Mrs. McCain told officials at a welcoming ceremony. “As
you know, he has a fondness for Vietnam.” Operation Smile has treated
more than 115,000 children born with cleft lips, cleft palates and other
facial deformities.
The group also trains local medical professionals in 26 partner
countries and donates medical equipment.
The USNS Mercy and Operation Smile have just completed a visit to the
Philippines and are due to sail to East Timor and Papua New Guinea,
offering reconstructive surgery to about 350 children with cleft lips
and cleft palates. In 1993, the McCains adopted a child born with a
cleft palate from Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh and named her
Bridget. She was successfully treated in the United States and is now 16
years old.
Source: TNN
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