On Sunday, September 2, 2018, at approximately 2:00pm ET, a private memorial service will take place in the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Maryland, honoring the life of Senator John McCain. Senator McCain’s family and friends, along with the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1958, Naval and military leaders, and the Brigade of Midshipmen have been invited to the ceremony.
Following the service, a private burial ceremony will be celebrated at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery and Senator McCain will be laid to rest next to his Naval Academy classmate and lifelong friend, Admiral Chuck Larson. All events at the U.S. Naval Academy will be closed to the public and the press.
Guidance note: Senator McCain followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by attending the U.S. Naval Academy, and graduated with the class of 1958. His son Jack also graduated from the Academy and currently serves in the Navy.
Guidance note: As classmates at the U.S. Naval Academy and Naval Air Station Pensacola flight school, Senator McCain and Admiral Chuck Larson developed a close friendship that endured throughout their adult lives. Larson graduated at the top of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1958. He went on to become the second-youngest admiral in history at the age of 43, and in 1968 was the first naval officer to be selected as a White House fellow. In 1991, Larson was named commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command – the same post previously held by Senator McCain’s father. Larson is the only person to have served twice as superintendent of the Naval Academy, first from 1983 to 1986 and again from 1994 to 1998. He also served as a naval aide under President Richard Nixon, and worked with three other presidents during his career.
Larson died of pneumonia in 2014, after undergoing two years of treatment for leukemia. Before he passed, Larson reserved four plots of land – for him, Senator McCain and their spouses – at the U.S. Naval Academy’s cemetery at Hospital Point, overlooking the Severn River near where their paths first crossed. The Naval Academy’s cemetery is the final resting place for hundreds of other notable American veterans, including Commander William B. Cushing, Rear Admiral Clarence Wade McClusky, Jr., and Admiral James Stockdale.
Coverage Details: All events at the U.S. Naval Academy are closed to the public and the press. However, a press pool will provide coverage of the arrival of Senator McCain’s motorcade at the gates of the U.S. Naval Academy. In addition, still photos of the day’s events may be released at the conclusion of the day.
Pool:
TV: FOX
Photog/Print: TBD
For ceremony details, please click here.