A U.S. Army base in western Louisiana has been renamed in honor of Sgt. William Henry Johnson, a Black veteran of World War I and a Medal of Honor recipient
A sign at west Louisiana U.S. Army base displays the base's new name in n Vernon Parish, Louisiana, Tuesday, June 13, 2023. The former Fort Polk on Tuesday formally became Fort Johnson, named for a Black World War I hero. FORT JOHNSON, La. — — A U.S. Army base in western Louisiana was renamed Tuesday to honor Sgt. William Henry Johnson, a Black hero of World War I who received the Medal of Honor nearly a century later.
“Sgt. William Henry Johnson embodied the warrior spirit, and we are deeply honored to bear his name,” Brig. Gen. David Garner, the commanding general of the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Johnson, said in a post on Twitter. Johnson was wounded 21 times while beating back the attacking forces. He also prevented a wounded Black comrade from being taken prisoner when, after running out of grenades and ammunition, he killed two German soldiers with his knife.
He survived the war, and former President Theodore Roosevelt named him one of the five bravest Americans to serve in the conflict. He insisted he was no hero, and the Army biography quotes him as saying, “There wasn’t anything so fine about it. Just fought for my life. A rabbit would have done that.”
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