Lee Johnson, PFC, Army medic, recipient of a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, Christian, father, grandfather, and native of Greenbrier County keeps several paintings in his living room, but two stand out to anyone who enters.
On the right is a painting of Johnson’s service in the Korean conflict, though Johnson attests that anyone who calls it that “wasn’t there.” On the left hangs a painting depicting people going down one of two paths. The left side is an easy hiking trail, while the right side is an hike up a mountain, a cross-shaped hole allowing the people through. Johnson pulled out an ultraviolet light and shined it on the mostly empty sky. Jesus and heaven appear over the mountains, while flames sprout over the easy path. Even at a young age, Johnson was a pious man and continues to be. He takes a seat in his living room, ready to tell the story of the day “God spared my life in 1953.”
The Korean conflict began in the 1950s, and Johnson was drafted and deployed in his early twenties.
His wife, who he has now shared 62 years with, was unknowingly pregnant at the time.
Meals for the United States troops in the Korean conflict were not at a set time for the troops. Instead, they were changed frequently, adding one more layer of protection against the enemy troops, preventing the enemy from learning their schedule and knowing when to attack. On the evening of Monday, May 4, 1953, it was scheduled for 4 PM for medics Lee Johnson and Johnny Gladwell.
Johnson and Gladwell were stationed on Erie Cut, a bunker near the main line of resistance where the two sides met. Outside the bunker was a sandbag barrier designed to protect Army Jeeps, also called litter jeeps, one of which was parked inside, shielded only on front and the sides, but exposed overhead. This bunker served as a home away from home for Johnson and Gladwell, offering a place of refuge to clean their guns and take off their flak jackets, although the protective jackets were never supposed to be removed.
This was interrupted when enemy artillery open fired between the mess hall bunker and their bunker, and they were told to return to the mess hall immediately. After pulling on their flak jackets, they arrived to discover that everyone there was already tended to. They returned to the sandbag bunker, only to be summoned a second time when shelling intensified.
The second arrival came with a tank commander’s news: two medics had been hit in front of the mess hall with shrapnel as they checked other soldiers for injuries.
“They had started out of the bunker to check on anyone who may have needed their help, but the only one’s needing help this time were the two medics that were risking their own [lives] to be of help to someone else,” Johnson said.
Pulling next to the mess hall, also made of sandbags, they found that a corner of the structure was blasted through, sand pouring from the makeshift walls, and the two wounded medics on the ground. Both were inflicted with serious injuries, and Johnson and Gladwell jumped into action, helping the wounded men while in full view of the enemy. Artillery shelling began around the sandbag bunker.
“[Gladwell and I] both decided we should move [the wounded medics] inside, and just moments after closing the door, a round hit the lower front corner of the bunker we were in,” Johnson said. “In that moment, I knew that God had spared my life.”
Once inside, however, the ordeal wasn’t over. Standing in the crowded bunker, while patching the wounded medics, they were suddenly aware of gas and oil seeped in from under the damaged door, covering the floor.
“We were again blessed by God’s mercy that there was no fire because there was at least two or three dozen people in the bunker at [that] time.”
As the artillery shelling died down, Johnson opened the door, looking for the litter jeep to transport the wounded medics. Outside, he found the jeep a mess: five flat tires, holes speckling the body, frame, seats, and the brake drum.
They used the radio to call for aid, and it was available; a three-quarter-ton truck arrived to take the wounded back to the 17th Regiment Aid Station, where they were rechecked and ultimately sent back to another base for further treatment.
“Many times, I have wondered if they lived or not, and we always wanted to care for the ones [we] tried to help in any way,” Johnson said. “We would do our best to care for them like we would want to be cared for.”
After the skirmish, Johnson received a Purple Heart for injuries sustained by hot shrapnel from the artillery fire that, at first, he did not feel he deserved. In addition, Johnson and Gladwell would go back to the bunker and find their devastated litter jeep. It was too fenced in to pull out with another truck, so Johnson got in and turned the key. To his surprise, the jeep came to life, and he backed it up enough to be able to tow it. Right as he stopped the jeep however, it stalled. A piece of shrapnel had sliced through the fuel line, and they had just enough fuel left in the engine to back it up to be towed.
Johnson served near the main line of resistance for an entire year, having even been presented the opportunity to be a driver for a general away from the main lines.
“I [had this] ‘dumb idea’ that if I was on the [front] line, I would have a better knowledge of what was going on, … and if it got too rough on the front line, … they would probably send me up front anyway, and then I would not be as familiar and not know what to do,” Johnson said. “[Besides] Johnny Gladwell and I had been together all the time so far, and we could be support for each other. … I chose to go back on the line.”
After leaving the service, Johnson returned to his life in Greenbrier County to his wife and his then five-month-old child, who he had yet to meet.
Read more in the Friday, November 10, edition of The West Virginia Daily News.
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