The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the MEDAL OFHONOR to

Sergeant James E. Johnson
United States Marine Corps

for service set forth in the following
CITATION:

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life aboveand beyond the call of duty while serving as a Squad Leader in aProvisional Rifle Platoon composed of Artillery men and attached toCompany J, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, First Marine Division(Reinforced), in action against aggressor forces at Yudam-Ni, Korea on 2December 1950. Vastly outnumbered by a well-entrenched and cleverlyconcealed enemy force wearing the uniforms of friendly troops andattacking his position, Sergeant Johnson unhesitatingly took charge of hisplatoon in the absence of the leader and, exhibiting great personal valorin the face of a heavy barrage of hostile fire, coolly proceeded to moveabout among his men, shouting words of encouragement and inspiration andskillfully directing their fire. Ordered to displace his platoon duringthe fire fight, he immediately placed himself in an extremely hazardousposition from which he could provide covering fire for his men. Fullyaware that his voluntary action meant either certain death or capture tohimself, he courageously continued to provide effective cover for his menand was last observed in a wounded condition single-handedly engagingenemy troops in close hand-to-hand fighting. By his valiant and inspiringleadership, Sergeant Johnson was directly responsible for the successfulcompletion of the platoon's displacement and the saving of many lives.His dauntless fighting spirit and unfaltering devotion to duty in the faceof terrific odds reflect the highest credit upon himself and the UnitedStates Naval Service."

s/HARRY TRUMAN

That's the way the citation reads. Those of us who knew Jim Johnson well,can tell, as Paul Harvey says, the rest of the story.

The citation stresses that Jim had the skills required by a platooncommander down cold. He should have. Just eighteen months before Jim hadbeen a Second Lieutenant in the U. S. Marine Corps and completing hismandatory nine months of training with the 5th Basic School Class beforedeparting into the Fleet Marine Force as a regular, unrestricted officer.Jim, as did 248 of his peers that year, had come from the ranks. Many ofus had been Staff Non-Commissioned Officers, and Jim must have been one ofthe younger of the officers commissioned. Odds are that he had attainedthe rank of Sergeant in an enlisted status, although I have no exactmemory of that. I look at his grainy picture among my other classmatesfrom the 5th Basic, and do not recognize him. That was not the JimJohnson I knew.

1948 was a tough year to try to convince any college graduate that acommission in the U. S. Marine Corps would be a great career move. Won'tbore you with statistics, but in order to fill the billets then existingin the Fleet Marine Force the Marine Corps turned, as it always did, towhat was called the "Meritorious NCO" program. In my case, recommendationto commissioned rank under this program was my eleventh. When promoted toSecond Lieutenant, I was, from my date of rank 4 June, 1948, seven monthsshy of my 21st birthday. I couldn't go into a bar and legally order adrink, nor could I be married without the permission of one of my parents.But I'd served during World War II and the North China Campaign, and wasabout to get my first hashmark when I became an officer. The reason Icite the foregoing is that it was typical of my classmates in the 5thBasic.

The Jim Johnson I knew had a quirky little smile on his face at all times,and you always knew that he was planning some deviltry or other on one ofhis classmates. Yet it was impossible to be but briefly annoyed with him.He had not a mean bone in his body. Mischievous, yes. Lots of them.Every month we students were forced to complete what we called a "F____Your Buddy" list. This meant that we had to rate from #1 to the low manon the totem pole our various classmates on various personality andprofessional characteristics. Every man jack of us hated this process,but there was no choice. Without a doubt Jim Johnson emerged #1 or veryclose to it in the popularity ratings. Some of the other matters, mosthaving to do with off duty foibles, I'm afraid that Jim would have ratedtoward the top--or the bottom, if you want to look at it that way. Wetook turns being Fire Team, Squad, and Platoon Leaders of our classmatesduring field exercises. These exercises gave us a chance to strut ourstuff, or lack of it. Jim was a standout. When I read the citationabove, I can just see Jim running about shouting encouragement, while alight snow is falling on Samsky's Ridge, as an acting platoon leader, withthat grin on his face, in the face of "blank" fire from an AggressorSquad hidden on a ridge 100 meters to our front. That was what he wascredited with doing that black night at Yudam-Ni when he joined the manyother Marine heroes who had gone to that great Marine Barracks in the sky.That he would die so that his fellow Marines could live was typical of theman.

But how, you ask, could a man like that have been deprived of commissionedrank and returned to the enlisted ranks? Well, the Basic School had asystem. You were literally graded on everything you did, from the wayyour pack was hung on your bunk, to whether your fingernails were clean.There was constant pressure to perform. Most of us laughed it off andrecognized it for what it was-- to see how much pressure we could take.

One of our DDIs, sort of a Drill Instructor for Second Lieutenants and Ihad been together for three years prior to our meeting again at Quantico.We were friends long before I had attained commissioned rank. We sat atthe bar in the O Club one Saturday afternoon at old Waller Hall, anornate, impressive, and historic watering place for years for MarineOfficers. In the process we engaged in some serious drinking, and Ichided him gently about the "chit" system, and we discussed the entireBasic School system of harassment thoroughly, and departed later thatafternoon somewhat the worse for wear, but fast friends. The followingMonday morning I went to my mailbox, and I could see him closely observingme while sitting at the DDI table at the back of our classroom. As Ipulled my mail out, a "65 "Unsatisfactory Chit" fluttered to the floorsigned by my old friend. As I picked it up I could see the broad grin onhis face as I read it. Seems that I had dust on the top of my wall lockerthat morning. Had it not have been that it would have been somethingelse. And that's how the game was usually played. I held up my welldeserved "Bad Chit," shook it at him, and grinned back.

Bad chits, however, were not always a matter of grinning. One of myclassmates tied a string around a dud 60 mm mortar round and dragged itinto an assemblage of his classmates and instructors who were critiquingthe mortar shoot we'd just completed. The Instructors took umbrage atsuch inconsiderateness, and the student officer was gone like a bad dreamthe following morning. Our course work was divided into five subjectareas. Two of the areas that required satisfactory completion in allsub-areas were, understandably, map reading and infantry weapons. Not afew of my classmates were washed out simply because they could or wouldnot learn nomenclature and functioning of various and sundry weapons. AsI recall, those who had come from the Air Wing had the most problems inthese areas. Obviously, those of us coming from an infantry backgroundwere way ahead of the game.

One of the beauties of being an officer back in the 40s was that your wordwas considered your bond. You could get anything you wanted anywhere youwanted by just signing a chit. If you've read much of Kipling and the19th Century Indian Army, the system was the same. Unfortunately, one ofthe places you could sign "chits" was Waller Hall, mentioned earlier.This lead to a few of my classmates ending up with a larger bar bill thantheir salaries for the month. This caused not a few to be dropped fromconsideration for eventual promotion to Commandant of the Marine Corps.My recollection is that Jim Johnson had problems along this line. But hewas not alone. We chided him about it, but all we'd get back was a biggrin, and a promise to reform. Next month.

No one could stay mad at Jim for long. He was too good natured. But eachof his escapades added another bad chit to the pile. And there would comethe time when the accumulation....

Then there was the officer, a bit of the worse for wear, who departedWashington, D.C. one Sunday night by train in plenty of time to make his0800 Monday morning formation. Problem was that he slept through thestation at Quantico, and didn't awake until the conductor was shouting his"All off for Richmond." A definite faux pas, that. By the time he hadworked his way back to Quantico early that afternoon the Marine Corps hadmade up its mind. This was not a first for this particular young officer,and the Marine Corps recommended that he find a line of work that didn'trequire him to ride trains.

My memory is that about a month before graduation, Jim Johnsondisappeared. What probably happened is that he was called in and notifiedthat he had exceeded the number of bad chits or whatever we were gradedon, and that his commission was to be revoked. I'd guess that he wasgiven the option of returning to the ranks as a Staff Sergeant, or beingdischarged.

Jim was but one of the 25% of my classmates who didn't make it tograduation. But he came very close.

I don't recall seeing him again until probably the night or possibly thenight before he was killed. I'd been told he was at the Chosin Reservoirby a classmate who had talked to him, and that he had joined the MarineCorps Reserves after his commission was revoked and been recalled toactive duty with the rest of our Reserves during the summer of '50 when weneeded them desperately. When I saw him I recognized him at 50 paces, andwent over to say hello. Same old Jim, same grin, same good cheer thatbelied the fact that we were operating in temperatures of 35 below zero atnight and some of the days hardly warmed up at all.

And so, Jim, you climbed the hill and found your glory and went to gloryall in one fell swoop. How typical of you, my friend. And let it not besaid that the Marine Corps wasted one red cent on training you to be aPlatoon Commander. They, and the taxpayers got their money back inspades, that freezing night of December 1, 1950. You were a superbPlatoon Commander, as good as they get, and that fact, as opposed to allthe "Bad Chits" you acquired in Basic School is as a mountain to amolehill.

The situation at Yudam Ni was not one that we could always withdraw ourdead for proper burial. I know that Marines usually say that we alwayswithdraw our dead. That's baloney for civilian consumption only. I wastold, although the citation is moot on the point, that Jim's body was notrecovered. So tonight Jim maintains his vigil on that lonely hilltop some11,000 miles away. Some of his buddies rest in eternal peace in thatvalley to his east he can look down on. So I'm not going to tell himto sleep, because I know that he's now, and always will be, on 100%alert.

We have a saying in the Marine Corps that we fight on the shoulders ofthose who went valiantly before. Marines don't fight for motherhood, theflag, or apple pie. Our sense of history and those who preceded us isingrained. We fight for our buddies, for our Corps, and because we alwayshave fresh in our memories those who went before to show us the way. Atevery Marine Corps Birthday we stand and chant the liturgy of the famousbattles that Marines have fought in for the past 225 years. One of theseis always the "Chosin Reservoir." So we stood on the shoulders of Marineslike Jim Johnson in Viet Nam 15 years later, and Grenada, and Panama, inDesert Storm and in Somalia. And what shoulders to stand on!

Causes of the Korean Tragedy ... Failure of Leadership, Intelligence and Preparation

The Foundations of Freedom are the Courage of Ordinary People and Quality of our Arms

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