I searched for feel-good stuff to use in this month’s column.

I wanted to write a piece similar to my recent column about cheerleaders, or the column lauding Lakeshore Railroad’s tradition of early morning city-wide transits accompanied by melodic whistle-blowing, or the column describing my experience riding with Jason Jewell collecting our city’s garbage where I was allowed to throw a bag or two.

But I was unable to find that level of tranquility; I had to settle for refreshing.

Remember John McCain?

In 1967, then-Navy pilot McCain, flying a combat mission over Vietnam, had to eject from his damaged aircraft. The force broke his arms and one leg and gave him a concussion.

He landed in a lake in the middle of Hanoi. Guards pulled him out, bayoneted him in the groin, and broke his soldier. They dragged him off to prison, where his weight dropped to 100 pounds. His fellow prisoners thought he would die.

After several months — as the result of political considerations — his captors informed him he was to be released, but McCain refused. The United States military code provided that U.S. prisoners of war should be released in the order they were captured.

McCain said it wasn’t his turn.

So they returned him to his cell — but not before breaking his ribs and an arm and knocking out his teeth. There he remained for four years, often in solitary confinement.

What would we have done standing in McCain’s shoes with limbs so recently broken, considering our susceptibility to depression, when an item we ordered promising two-day free delivery doesn’t arrive until the third day?

I can’t answer for you, but I have a good idea of my decision to stay or leave. It’s likely what you would surmise.

What do you suppose our supreme leader would have done?

I don’t know that either, though a bone spur may provide a clue. But I know this: Donald Trump didn’t like McCain.

“He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who were not captured,” Trump said, missing the essence of McCain’s heroic actions but not an opportunity for disparagement.

McCain wasn’t a hero because he was captured — although he and other prisoners of war certainly merit that consideration. He was a hero because he committed to something greater than himself.

After spending five-and-a-half years in prison, McCain was released in 1973. In 1982, he was elected to Congress as a Republican representative from the State of Arizona.

In 1987, he was elected to the Senate, serving there until his death in 2018.

In 2000, McCain ran in the Republican presidential primary, losing to George W. Bush. He was the Republican nominee for president in 2008 but lost to President Obama.

How did his capacity to commit to something greater than himself hold up during this extensive political slog?

Well, he wasn’t perfect — McCain was human, after all — but he didn’t do so bad, not so bad at all.

Jacob Weisberg, a reporter who covered McCain during his 2000 presidential campaign, made these observations:

“(McCain’s) struggle with conscience was fascinating to watch. He would behave like an ordinary politician and then flagellate himself mercilessly for having done so.”

“McCain’s combination of principled belief and subversive nature made him into an unexpected creature: A Republican dissident — he had no respect for authority, especially that of his party’s moneyed establishment.”

After losing the primary of 2000, McCain returned to South Carolina to apologize. During the campaign, he had referred to the confederate flag flying over its statehouse as a symbol of heritage when he knew it was a symbol of racism.

A politician who apologized. How refreshing is that?

In 2003, McCain was instrumental in passing campaign finance reform.

It restricted the efforts of vested wealth and power to drown the voices of ordinary citizens.

However, in 2010, our Supreme Court nullified those reforms in its misguided decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

How different our world would be if McCain’s common-sense finance reforms had survived.

In 2017, dying of cancer, McCain returned to the Senate to cast his famous “Thumbs down” vote, dashing Trump’s and his own party’s attempt to diminish the Affordable Care Act.

McCain saved health care for millions of Americans not because he liked the Affordable Care Act’s approach to needed improvements but because he believed the “little guy” was getting bullied.

Recently, Danielle Sassoon, Hagan Scotten, and five other deputy United States Attorneys lost their jobs for refusing an unlawful order to block criminal charges against the mayor of New York City.

They had the character to place our Justice system’s integrity above their self-interest.

I suspect Trump didn’t like McCain because McCain had the character to transcend self-interest.

Our constitutional order of checks and balances is under attack. Its survival depends on people who support refreshing action: protecting the tranquility of integrity and rejecting the meaninglessness of chaos.

Doug Pugh’s “Vignettes” runs monthly. He can be reached at pughda@gmail.com.