ANXIOUS parents will soon be packing up their sons’ belongings and driving them to a military camp in California for the gruelling, four-month training to become a US Marine.

By January some will be saying goodbye again as their sons head off to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among the parents waving their sons off this September is the man who could be their next commander-in-chief, the Republican senator John McCain. His youngest son, Jimmy, 18, could be heading to war shortly after three months of Marine boot camp and a fourth of specialised training.

Jimmy’s chosen path in life may not be surprising, given his family’s illustrious military history. His grandfather and great-grandfather were admirals, and his father, a naval pilot, spent five years as a prisoner of war after being shot down over North Vietnam.

But the timing is certainly unusual. If, as expected, the elder McCain throws his hat into the White House ring, he could join Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of the only presidential candidates to have had a son at war. Four of FDR’s sons served in the Second World War when their father was President, Elliott attaining the rank of brigadier-general.

With Iraq casting a shadow over the next presidential race, the prospect of young Jimmy’s service there will undoubtedly colour the debate. President Bush and Vice-President Cheney have been derided as “chicken hawks” for sending other people’s children to Iraq, having used family connections to keep out of combat in Vietnam. As Americans grow weary of the war, their Administration is struggling to reduce troop strength in Iraq while Democrats call loudly for an immediate troop withdrawal.

Mr McCain, seen as a moderate within his party, is nonetheless a staunch supporter of the war and has long argued that there should be more, not fewer, troops there.

That Jimmy might be one of them only bolsters his credibility. And Jimmy having broken with his family’s long naval tradition to join the Marines only puts his chances higher of seeing combat. Almost half of the 178,000 US Marines have had a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. About 6,000 Marines have been wounded and 650 killed in Iraq alone.

“I’m obviously very proud of my son,” Mr McCain told Time magazine, “but also, understandably, a little nervous.”

The prospect of Jimmy’s deployment also raises the spectre of an old family drama.

At the time that Mr McCain was captured by the North Vietnamese, his father was an admiral commanding US forces in the Pacific. His grandfather had served as an admiral in the Pacific during the Second World War and was present at the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.

When Mr McCain’s captors discovered his lineage, they offered him early release from the notorious “Hanoi Hilton” prison camp, where he was held and tortured. Mr McCain refused to leave while others had to stay, and remained another four years and nine months. During his imprisonment his father repeatedly ordered devastating airstrikes on Hanoi, knowing that his son was there.

Such a courtesy is unlikely to be offered to Jimmy should he be captured by enemies in Iraq. Nor, apparently, has he been put off by his father’s war tales, retold in agonising detail in his memoir, Faith of My Fathers. Mr McCain had his arms repeatedly broken by North Vietnamese torturers; they never properly healed and to this day he is unable to lift his arms above his head.

Mr McCain, 69, who has reportedly been irritated by media interest in his son’s decision, downplays the suggestion that it is noteworthy. “I don’t think there’s anything unusual about Jimmy,” he told Time, after failing to persuade them not to run the story. “There are, thank God, lots of young men and women like him.”

Few, however, are so privileged. Critics use the term “economic conscription” to explain the current composition of the military — heavy with recruits from poor, rural backgrounds with few opportunities and no other means to get to college than to enlist.

Mr McCain is probably America’s most famous senator and Jimmy’s mother, Cindy, is independently wealthy as a Budweiser heiress. Recruits from such backgrounds remain rare. Two other children of senators have served in Iraq; thirty-two work as lobbyists.

If the Republicans retain control of the Senate after the November mid-term elections, Mr McCain will become the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, with day-to-day oversight of the running of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as his son becomes eligible for deployment. From there Mr McCain will decide whether to enter the 2008 race.

Mr McCain is already respected across party lines for his integrity and military heroism, as well as his proven security credentials, and his support is likely to be bolstered by his son’s service. It will bring him personal contact with the war in Iraq, and with it public sympathy for another father watching his son go to war.

FIGHTING FAMILIES

Rudyard Kipling’s eldest son, John, was killed in action during the First World War after his father had intervened to get him a commission in the Irish Guards despite his poor eyesight

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating