I always wondered about McCain and PTSD. I too suffer from PTSD, although mine arose not from being tortured as a POW, but from a childhood of brutal violence culminating with my mother's death in the car with me. (A child seeing someone die has close to a 100% chance of experiencing PTSD. A child who sees his own mother die? Who knows.)
What are my symptoms? For me, the single biggest symptom is hypervigilance. I don't like being around other people, because my brain tells me that it's quite possible one or more of the people around me are enemies. I also really really dislike having my back to a door, and I do not like being in a room with only one way out of it. I relive those final few moments of my mom's life, and some of her most severe beatings, on a more or less daily basis. I've always had this feeling of being doomed, as if there was no chance that I would survive to be as old as I am. (You cannot imagine how shocked I was to wake up one day, 40 years old. I *never* thought that was even a possibility.) This drained motivation from me: why do this or do that, I'll be dead soon anyway. I'm extremely prepared for disasters, probably unnaturally so, because I always expect disaster. (Not necessarily a bad thing, but I take it too far.) My symptoms are mild compared to those faced by many of our soldiers, who end up roaming their homes in the wee hours armed with guns, and freak out and think firemen are 'the enemy' and the like.
I used to have issues with anger, and became less capable over time of dealing with stress. I do have to wonder if a formerly tortured POW, who almost surely suffers from PTSD (publicly or not), is really capable of leading this country. I wouldn't be capable, I know that, and my symptoms are mild compared to many.