[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 100 (Thursday, May 28, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E498-E499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       AMERICAN HERO SAM JOHNSON

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JOE WILSON

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 28, 2020

  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Madam Speaker, my wife Roxanne and I 
will always cherish the inspiring opportunity to serve in Congress with 
Congressman Sam Johnson who died yesterday. He and his late wife 
Shirley were always encouraging and the embodiment of American 
Patriots. I include in the Record a worthy tribute published today in 
The Washington Times written by Will Weissert.

               [From the Associated Press, May 27, 2020]

      Sam Johnson, Ex-Texas GOP Congressman and Vietnam POW, Dies

                           (By Will Weissert)

       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, died Wednesday at age 89.
       The conservative Republican, who lived in the northern 
     Dallas suburb of Plano, died at a Plano hospital of natural 
     causes unrelated to the coronavirus outbreak, said his former 
     spokesman, Ray Sullivan.
       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.
       The ardent conservative and anti-communist was elected to 
     Congress in 1991 after six years in the Texas House of 
     Representatives. He vowed to stay a maximum of 12 years, 
     though he served more than double that.
       Johnson had been a POW with U.S. Sen. John McCain, and 
     although they clashed in Congress, Johnson defended McCain in 
     2015, when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested 
     he wasn't a hero because he'd been captured. Johnson 
     announced in January 2017 that he would retire at the end of 
     his term. When Johnson stepped down in 2019, at age 88, he 
     was the oldest member of the U.S. House.
       ``Scripture tells us `There is a time for everything, and a 
     season for every activity under heaven,' '' Johnson wrote in 
     a January 2017 letter to constituents, telling them he would 
     retire at the end of his term. ``For me, the Lord has made 
     clear that the season of my life in Congress is coming to an 
     end.''
       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.
       Samuel Robert Johnson was born on Oct. 11, 1930, in San 
     Antonio. He grew up in Dallas, married Shirley Lee Melton in 
     1950 and graduated the following year from his hometown's 
     Southern Methodist University with a degree in business 
     administration.
       Johnson enlisted in the military at age 20 and served 
     during the Korean and Vietnam wars. He was 35 on April 
     16,1966, and flying a night mission carrying loads of napalm, 
     when his aircraft came under heavy enemy fire over Vietnam.
       The gun of Johnson's F-4 Phantom II jammed and the plane 
     was hit. Its right engine caught fire, forcing Johnson and 
     co-pilot Larry Chesley to eject, and the future congressman 
     broke his arm and back and dislocated his shoulder.

[[Page E499]]

       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 3-foot by 8-foot, 
     rat-infested ``dark and filthy cell.
       ``Forty-two of those months were spent in solitary 
     confinement with 10 other fine American patriots because the 
     Vietcong labeled us `die hard' resistors,'' Johnson wrote in 
     2015.
       He recalled tapping code on the wall to communicate with 
     other Americans being held, and that ``our captors would 
     blare nasty recordings over the loud speaker of Americans 
     protesting back home.''
       While speaking on the House floor in 2003, Johnson said his 
     faith only got stronger through captivity. He recalled how 
     one day his captors put him against a wall and promised to 
     execute him with machine guns.
       ``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.''
       He was released and flew out of Hanoi on Feb. 12, 1973. He 
     earned a master's degree at George Washington University in 
     Washington in 1976. He retired from the Air Force three years 
     later and began a home-building business. He was elected to 
     the Texas Legislature in 1984 and went to Congress following 
     a special election in 1991, after Rep. Steve Bartlett 
     resigned to become Dallas mayor.
       Representing Plano and other conservative northern suburbs 
     of Dallas, Johnson was known for his work on veterans' 
     affairs and for his efforts to bolster the financial standing 
     of the Social Security program. He took office backing term 
     limits, yet he stayed in Congress more than double his 
     promised maximum of 12 years.
       When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, Johnson and 
     other Republican military veterans in Congress alleged that 
     Russian intelligence lured Clinton to Moscow during the 
     Vietnam war when ``I was sitting in a POW camp in Vietnam 
     eating fish eyes and pig fat.'' Questions about Clinton's 
     patriotism dogged him during his first campaign, but the 
     allegations made by Johnson and the others were largely soon 
     forgotten.
       As a prisoner of war, Johnson shared a cell with McCain, 
     who would later become a U.S. senator from Arizona. But the 
     pair later clashed on political issues--including McCain's 
     efforts to eventually help normalize U.S. relations with 
     Vietnam. Still, Johnson criticized Trump for suggesting 
     McCain was no hero.
       ``Comments like those of Donald Trump, or any other 
     American, suggesting that veterans like Senator John McCain 
     or any other of America's honorable POWs are less brave for 
     having been captured are not only misguided, they are 
     ungrateful and naive,'' Johnson wrote in 2015.
       In February 2018--marking the 45th anniversary of the 
     operation that led to his release--Johnson donated a chipped 
     green tin cup issued by his captors and tube of toothpaste he 
     smuggled out of North Vietnam to the Smithsonian's National 
     Museum of American History. Johnson recalled then how he and 
     other prisoners would communicate by tapping on the walls and 
     how he'd hold his cup against them to amplify sounds and 
     better hear their messages.
       In his autobiography, ``Captive Warriors: A Vietnam POW's 
     Story,'' Johnson wrote of the cup: ``For me, it symbolized 
     our war of resistance for seven long years. It had been a 
     means of communication and, as such, a means of survival.''
       Johnson's wife died on Dec. 3, 2015 at their home in Plano 
     at age 85. He is survived by his adult daughters, Gini 
     Johnson Mulligan and Beverly Johnson Briney, and 10 
     grandchildren. His son, James Robert ``Bob'' Johnson, died in 
     2013 at age 61.

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