Cpl. Joseph Johnson on patrol near Husseiniya, Iraq.
photo by Louie Favorite/AJC
Posted on 10/13/2005 8:38:29 AM PDT by Former Military Chick
Rifle ready, Cpl. Joe Johnson nimbly stepped around mounds of trash and pools of raw sewage, handing out strawberry Twizzlers to scabby, barefoot children.
Cpl. Joseph Johnson on patrol near Husseiniya, Iraq.
photo by Louie Favorite/AJC
It saddens Johnson to think this desperate poverty and filth were the last things his son saw before he was killed last year.
For more than a year, Johnson fought to follow in his son’s footsteps to Iraq. There was a sense of soldierly duty, but what most drew him here was his desire for vengeance.
“I can shoot an insurgent and not lose a bit of sleep over it,” said Johnson, a home builder from Lyerly, Ga. “I think any father would feel a sense of revenge. To me, it would be like someone down the street killed my son and I sat by and didn’t do anything about it.”
But since his arrival less than a month ago, this former Church of God missionary has discovered the children of Iraq. And on occasion they have rekindled the Christian spirit in his heart that was once his guiding light.
This date is inscribed on a silver bracelet on Johnson’s right wrist: April 10, 2004. Spc. Justin Johnson, 22, was killed that day by a roadside bomb. Joe says he won’t take the bracelet off until he returns home sometime next year.
When he talks about his son, Joe grows quiet. He looks off into the distance almost as if he is searching for something. He is not a complex man and at times struggles to express the conflicting emotions he keeps hidden deep inside.
At 48, Joe has a youthful face. He carries a photo of his son in uniform. The two look nearly identical. They were close. Almost too close. Justin worked in his father’s home construction business. They occasionally fought like relatives who spend too much time together.
“We would get into it and he would quit,” Joe said. “He would go out and party with his friends and come into work late and I would fire him.”
Joe was supposed to be in Iraq last year, looking after his son. He wanted to be here the same time as Justin. With seven years of service in the Army and Navy combined, he had the experience. He thought it would make it easier on his wife. She would know he would do his best to look out for their son.
Joe contacted several military units, asking when they were deploying to Iraq. He had no luck until he found a National Guard brigade in Washington heading out. He joined — but then he injured his knee in training and was unable to deploy with the unit.
“It was a big letdown,” he said.
Justin went on to Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division. He patrolled a Baghdad slum called Sadr City, manning a machine gun on a Humvee.
Joe talked to his son once by telephone before his death. “I thought I would be seeing him in a few months when my knee got better,” Joe said. “What are the odds? I really wasn’t worried about him.”
On Easter Sunday, while he was recovering from his injury at Fort Lewis, Joe got a call from his wife. He had trouble understanding her because she was crying so much. She told him Justin was gone.
Joe and Jan Johnson mourn their son in April 2004 at Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome.
photo by Billy Smith II/AJC
Jan Johnson said a change came over her husband almost immediately after he learned of Justin’s death.
“He got mad at God for a while,” she said, sitting in the photo-lined living room of the family home on the outskirts of Lyerly.
“He never stopped loving God,” Jan continued, “but he blamed God for what happened to Justin. I think he just wanted to blame somebody because he somehow felt responsible.”
When Joe stopped blaming God, he started blaming all Muslims for his son’s death. For more than a year the couple talked about his feelings and his desire for revenge.
Finally, Jan said, she told him: “I don’t care if you go over there and kill every one of them. It won’t bring Justin back.”
On the first anniversary of his son’s death, Joe made up his mind. He picked the Savannah-based 1st Battalion of the 118th Field Artillery Regiment because it was headed to Iraq. He said his wife “wasn’t too happy with me.”
But Jan said she knew there was little she could do to stop him.
“I don’t think he’d ever have closure until he went over there,” she said.
“I told my wife, ‘If I don’t come, who will?’ ” he said. “I keep trying to drill in her head that when my time is up, my time is up. The Bible says your days are numbered. God will decide when to bring me home.”
Jan Johnson says grief altered her husband. “He got mad at God for awhile…”
photo by Curtis Compton/AJC
But that does little to comfort his wife.
“My nerves are shot worrying about Joe and Joshua,” she “I told my wife, ‘If I don’t come, who will?’ ” he said. “I keep trying to drill in her head that when my time is up, my time is up. The Bible says your days are numbered. God will decide when to bring me home.”
But that does little to comfort his wife.
“My nerves are shot worrying about Joe and Joshua,” she said.
Joshua, 26, is their oldest son and a Special Forces sergeant. The couple also have a daughter, Joleen Gladney, who is Joshua’s twin, and three grandchildren.
Jan stays busy working around the couple’s 13-plus acres, bordered by the Chattooga River. She also is involved with the Georgia chapter of the Blue Star Mothers of America, an organization for those with sons and daughters serving in the military.
She wears a blue star pin for Joshua, a gold star pin for Justin and a silver bracelet with Joe’s name on it. She also wears a set of Joe’s dog tags around her neck. Justin’s dog tags hang from the rearview mirror of her PT Cruiser.
In recent weeks Jan has become something of an anti-Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who became an outspoken anti-war activist after her son, Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq last year. Jan has appeared on CNN and done other interviews as a mother who supports the war despite losing a son.
“I don’t want Joe over there,” she said, “but it’s not because I don’t support what’s going on. I’ve already lost one. I don’t want to lose another. But my son died trying to give somebody else freedom.”
Ironically, Justin and Casey were friends, Jan said, and were killed just six days apart.
Iraqi children have helped Joe Johnson regain much of his former self, his wife says.
photo by Louie Favorite/AJC
“The day Casey died, Justin called and told me he had just lost a good friend. Justin cried on the phone,” she said.
Joe talked about Justin recently at Camp Taji, a sprawling base northwest of Baghdad. He chain-smoked Marlboro Lights, tipping his ashes into a strawberry red Fanta soda can. His language had grown saltier. He was back in the military again, back to old habits.
Joe’s side of the two-man trailer was Spartan. He had arrived just 17 days before and hadn’t unpacked all his gear or hung up any family photos. He wore the standard desert camouflage uniform. He was so fresh his unit hadn’t given him one of the newer, mint-green uniforms that 48th Brigade soldiers wear.
Joe guards civil affairs missions outside the wire, when soldiers hand out school supplies and help rebuild the country’s infrastructure. He carries a rifle and occasionally mans a machine gun on a Humvee, just as his son did. His unit operates in an area just a short drive from where Justin died.
Friends and relatives tell him he shouldn’t be here, that he should be home with his family.
“They think I’m over here strictly for revenge,” Joe said. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”
But as he walks the trash-strewn streets of Husseiniya and other nearby villages, Joe finds it somewhat unsettling.
“It feels kind of weird to see the things that [Justin] may have seen and experience the same, minus the combat, you know, that he experienced,” he said.
Joe sometimes wonders what he would have done had he been here when his son was killed.
“I might have just run outside the wire and started shooting. I don’t know,” he said.
Revenge is a powerful motivation for Joe, but not the only one. He is learning Arabic on his own so he can communicate with Iraqis. A thick stack of homemade Arabic flash cards sits by his bed. Among the phrases he has learned: “We are here to help you.”
Jan believes the Iraqi children have helped Joe regain much of his former self. On their mission trips to Ecuador he was always partial to the children.
“I think this has become more of a mission trip for him,” she said. “It kind of replaced Ecuador.”
Joe said most Iraqis he had met expressed their thanks for the Americans’ being there.
“The kids are very appreciative of everything we give them, the candy, the school supplies. And that is another reason why I’m here, for the kids.”
Joe concedes his decision may not have been the best one for his family. But now that he’s here, he feels he’s doing something worthwhile.
“As Christians, we need to stay and help [the Iraqis],” he said. “I hope I can help them while I’m here.”
Meanwhile, a painful process is starting over again. Joshua is preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. Joe said he offered Joshua a deal: He would give up on Iraq if his son would not go to Afghanistan.
“He wouldn’t deal with me,” Joe said regretfully.
“You can’t spend too much time with your kids,” he added emphatically. “It’s just not possible.”
Joe has one other regret. He doesn’t recall ever telling Justin how proud he was of him. When Joshua was promoted to sergeant in August, Joe got on the phone.
“He called to congratulate him,” Jan said. “And he told him how proud he was of him.”
Staff writer Jeremy Redmon’s e-mail address jredmon@ajc.com; Ron Martz’s address is rmartz@ajc.com.
I salute this family for their love of country, for what they have lost and for what they have gained.
You forgot to post a tissue/big lump in throat alert! Amazing man and family! God bless them all!
PING
A father so loved his son, what an amazing dad. This was touching and insightful worthy of sending to friends and family.
bttt
God Bless this family!
Wow...joined back up at 48, says a lot about his personal conviction and the military's need for people.
What a good story.
If you go to the paper there are few other links of this amazing dad and his audio contributions to the paper of his quest. It is towards the top of the article.
What an incredible and inspiring story, FMC. What a wonderful family.
Thanks. I'll check it out.
Terrific story!
I hate it when these articles make me cry at work. I like this one because it shows how complex we are. Very little in the media does that.
Great stuff ~ Bump!
There are some wonderful comment's left in tribute of this fine soldier. Thought you might like to check it out at your liesure.
Thanks for the ping. Remarkable people. It sounds like his dad is sorting things out.
And this article being in the AJC is remarkable in itself.
ping
Great story, but I have a couple of questions:
1. How did Dad get back in the Army at age 48?
2. How'd he get the Army to let him pick his unit and assignment?
I'm not criticizing him, mind you -- I'm just curious.
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