Jeff Denham: “Thank you, Madam Speaker. Forty years ago today, the first flight carrying U.S. prisoners of war out of North Vietnam…”

“Thank you, Madam Speaker. Forty years ago today, the first flight carrying U.S. prisoners of war out of North Vietnam lifted off from Hanoi to take the first 40 U.S. servicemen to freedom. These men, some of whom had been held for 8 years in a brutal captivity, were just a small cohort of more than 683 Americans known to have been held in North Vietnamese prisons and the first of 591 POWs returned to American soil after the Paris Peace Accords through Operation Homecoming. {time} 1845 Sadly, 92 Americans died in captivity, and to this day, more than 1,000 Americans who served in Indochina during the Vietnam war era are still unaccounted for. Today, we are here to honor both the men who survived and those who never returned. Their extraordinary courage, endurance, and sacrifice should be an example for everyone in this Chamber and across the country. I would, in particular, like to recall the service of my good friend Senator John McCain and of our colleague here in the House, Sam Johnson, who spent nearly 7 years as a prisoner of war--many of them locked in solitary confinement. The treatment that Congressman Sam Johnson and Senator McCain faced inside the prisons was designed to break those held. To force them to give military information or to serve as propaganda tools for the North Vietnamese regime, physical and emotional torture were used to compel cooperation.…”