Surviving Hell

On April 19, 1967, Leo Thorsness was on a mission over North Vietnam when his wingman was shot down by an enemy MiG that then lined up for a gunnery pass on the two American pilots who had bailed out. Although his F-105 was not designed for aerial combat, Thorsness immediately engaged the enemy aircraft and destroyed it. When Thorsness spotted four more MiGs, he fought his way through a barrage of North Vietnamese SAMs to engage them too, shooting down one more and driving the others off.

Leo Thorsness received the Medal of Honor in 1973, not long after he and the other American POWs were released from prison in North Vietnam. In 1974, he lost a tight race to George McGovern for a South Dakota Senate seat. In 1978, he was declared the winner of a House of Representatives race in South Dakota over Tom Daschle, but lost a six-month recount. Thorsness served six years as an executive with Litton Industries in Beverly Hills in the 1980s and, from 1988 to 1992, was a Washington state senator. He and his wife, Gaylee, live near their daughter and two granddaughters in Huntsville, Alabama.