Louie Gohmert: “I thank my friend from Louisiana, my neighbor--wonderful points being made. I also want to call attention, Mr. Speaker…”

“I thank my friend from Louisiana, my neighbor--wonderful points being made. I also want to call attention, Mr. Speaker, today to the 43rd anniversary of the release from imprisonment of American POWs from North Vietnam, among whom is our friend and hero here in the House, Sam Johnson. It was nice of staff to have a little reception for Congressman Johnson, and it is important to remember such things and try to learn from our mistakes. Because once again, in the last couple of weeks, I have heard references to mistakes of the past, like the lesson we should have learned from Vietnam, and then they get the lesson all wrong. We really didn't allow our military in Vietnam to win the war in Vietnam. Our pilots, our military operations, they could have won that war had they been allowed to do so. And the best indication of that is, after 7 years that Sam Johnson spent in just the most horrid conditions, horrendous torture, joined by other American heroes, like John McCain, who was 3 years at the Hanoi Hilton, where Sam Johnson was. I know he was shot down 5 years before the release, but it was only the last 3 years that he was placed in confinement there with, I believe, 10 others in the worst of the worst facilities, so bad that even today, after they cleaned up some of the torture chambers and tried to dress them up, they still won't let Americans go into the original Hanoi Hilton where they held 11, including Sam Johnson, in the most horrid of conditions.…”