U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) was forced to apologize Tuesday to Republican Presidential candidate John McCain for comments he made about McCain’s military service.

“I have profound respect and appreciate his dedication to our country, and I regret my very poor choice of words,” Rockefeller said in a prepared statement.

Rockefeller, who supports Barack Obama for President and has campaigned for him, said in an interview with the Charleston Gazette editorial board this week that McCain was not grounded in issues affecting people because, in part, he was a fighter pilot.

“He flies at 35,000 feet and drops laser-guided bombs, missiles,” Rockefeller said. “He was long gone before they hit.  What happened down there, he doesn’t know.”   Rockefeller added that he knew the comments were “unkind” because McCain was fighting for the country, but he added, “You sort of have to care what goes on in people’s lives.”

The McCain campaign responded through Lt. Col. Orson Swindle, USMC (retired) who served in Vietnam and spent 20 months in a Hanoi prison with McCain.  “We know what flying through hell is like and the senator doesn’t,” Swindle told Metronews.  “He probably never heard a shot fired in anger unless it was in the backwoods of West Virginia hunting or something like that.”

“He (Rockefeller) doesn’t know a damn thing about the military,” Swindle added.

Later, Obama’s office issued a statement saying Obama “does not agree with what Senator Rockefeller said.”

It was only a short time after that Rockefeller’s statement of apology was issued.  “I have a deep respect for John McCain’s honorable and noble service to our country,” Rockefeller said in the statement.  “I made an inaccurate and wrong analogy and I have extended by sincere apology to him.”