Former Texas Rep. Sam Johnson, a military pilot who spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam before serving more than two decades in Congress, has died. He was 89.
FILE - In this June 4, 2013, file photo, Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Former Texas Rep. Johnson, a military pilot who spent years at a prisoner of war in Vietnam before serving more than two decades in Congress, died Wednesday, May 27, 2020, at age 89.
Johnson flew nearly 100 combat missions in Korea and Vietnam. He was flying a bombing mission in 1966 when he was shot down and wounded. He was imprisoned in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” for nearly seven years, mostly in solitary confinement. He retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1979, after a 29-year career.
Another former Texas congressman, Ralph Hall, was the oldest-ever member of the U.S. House when he left office at age 91 in 2014. Hall, a Republican and World War II pilot, was 95 when he died in March 2019. Johnson recalled trudging through the jungle before being surrounded by North Vietnamese soldiers who took him to the infamous Hoa Lo Prison, better known as the “Hanoi Hilton.” He endured what he would later describe as a 3-foot by 8-foot, rat-infested “dark and filthy cell.”
“I started praying harder than I have ever prayed in my life. In a few seconds, the guns went click, click, click, click, click,” Johnson told the chamber. “It is only because of the grace of God I survived.”
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