John McCain, a lion of the US Senate, war hero and presidential candidate, was also one of Australia's great friends.
Mr McCain's death on Saturday after stopping treatment for an aggressive brain tumour will be felt across Australia, with the 81-year-old a regular visitor for half a century and over the years a staunch defender and peacemaker for Australia.
When US President Donald Trump, just days after moving into the White House early last year, had the stoush with then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull about the asylum-seeker deal Mr McCain immediately backed Australia.
"Australia, they fought alongside us in wars including losing over 500 brave Australians in the Vietnam War, which some of us remember," an outraged Mr McCain told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Mr McCain, a Navy fighter pilot who was shot down during the Vietnam War, endured torture, solitary confinement and more than five years locked up in horrendous prisoner of war camps.
His family military history stretches back to a relative who served on the staff of America's first president, George Washington, in the 1700s.
In May last year, just two months before his brain tumour diagnosis, Mr McCain visited Australia and delivered the Alliance 21 Lecture at the NSW State Library in Sydney.
He spoke fondly of the ties his father and grandfather, both four-star US Navy admirals, also had with Australia.
"My grandfather first sailed here aboard the Great White Fleet (the early 1900s)," Mr McCain told the event hosted by the United States Studies Centre.
"He later commanded US air forces in the South Pacific during the Second World War, fighting in the defence of Australia, and then commanded aircraft carriers under Admiral Halsey.
"My father captained a submarine out of Perth for much of the Pacific campaign and then commanded all US forces in this theatre during the Vietnam War."
His family's bond with Australia continued with his sons, Jack and Jimmy, serving alongside Australian forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The McCain family has literally been sailing and flying around Australia and the Pacific for most of the past century - for better or for worse," he said.
Mr McCain also joked about his own Navy deployments to the Asia-Pacific and how he spent "many evenings on R&R here in Sydney, enjoying the many cultural amenities of King's Cross".
Despite both being senior figures in the Republican Party, Mr McCain and Mr Trump have engaged in regular verbal, sometimes personal, stoushes.
Mr McCain went to great pains during last year's Australian visit to talk up the strength of the US-Australian alliance, rather than Mr Trump's controversial tweets and policies.
"Our foreign friends always tend to focus on the person in the White House," he said.
"But America is far bigger than that."
One of Mr McCain's more recent efforts in Congress was pushing for the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative, a $US7.5 billion military funding program for US forces and their Asia-Pacific allies to combat China's rise.
"Australia has always had a special place in my heart," Mr McCain said last year in Sydney.
"And on behalf of my entire nation, I want to say something to my Australian friends that we Americans can never tell you enough: Thank you from the bottom of my heart, thank you."
