For six-and-a-half years, Air Force Col. Thomas McNish did not know when his captivity in a North Vietnamese prison would end after his F-105 was shot down while on a bombing raid in 1966. For the former prisoner of war, waiting out the coronavirus pandemic is easy.

“I had no idea how long I was going to be there the day I was shot down,” McNish, 77, told the Washington Examiner by phone from his home in San Antonio, where like other local veterans, he is sheltering in place.