‘I got to be thankful’: WWII veteran celebrates 101st birthday on Veterans Day
GOOSE CREEK, S.C. (WCSC/Gray News) - Veterans Day is particularly special for one World War II Navy veteran in South Carolina who marked a major birthday.
Bishop Johnie Johnson marked his 101st birthday on Monday. He recently shared his experience serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
“Well, if we didn’t fight and the other side would have won, I don’t know what America would look like,” he said.
Johnson is part of what’s known as “The Greatest Generation,” men and women who fought to defend freedom during World War II. But Johnson its he was drafted into a war that he wanted no part in.
“I didn‘t want to go, but I had to go. As I was boarding the ship on the runway going up the ramp, I said within myself, ‘If I jump overboard, they might send me back home.’ But I couldn’t pick up the nerve to jump,” he said.
The young sailor had never left home before he ed the Navy and his new life at sea would take some getting used to.
“For five or six days, I wasn’t even able to stand up in line to eat. I had to pick up scraps off of people’s plates ‘cause the line was circled round and I was seasick the whole time and the fellows were laughing at me because I was seasick,” he said. “When we first got over there and we got off the ship, I was rocking for a long time, standing up straight but still rocking.”
He says he was blessed in the Navy because he never had to shoot anyone.
“At that time, the battle was hot in Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Our battalion went to Pearl Harbor and I was able to stay there to ship supplies down to the front lines,” he said. “So I didn’t have to go to the frontlines. I stayed at Pearl Harbor in the supply line, so that’s one of the things I was blessed with. I never had to shoot a gun. And some of my friends would come back, some of them shot up, some of them hurt. Came back and stopped in Hawaii for a while on the way out, and that’s as close as I’ve been to seeing what happened. And we lost a lot of men, a lot of people died in that war.”
The nation’s annual observance of Veterans Day on Nov. 11, coincides with Johnson’s birthday.
“I’m surprised that I’m still here. I never dreamed that I would be here this long,” he says. “But I’m grateful to still be able to be here. Can drive and go where I want to go. Still can get on my boat and go fishing if I want to. So I’m just grateful. The Lord has been good to me. And I got to be thankful.”
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