Army Sgt. 1st Class Allen Johnson, 31, Los Molinos; Killed in Afghanistan

Army Sgt. 1st Class Allen C. Johnson and his wife, Staff Sgt. Eunice Johnson, went to see “The Polar Express” on Nov. 18, the final outing before their November deployments -- he to Afghanistan; she to Iraq.

They both cried during the movie. “We were missing our kids,” she said.

Joshua, 3, and Naomi, 1, were staying with Allen Johnson’s parents in the Northern California community of Los Molinos while the two soldiers went overseas.

“He was very proud of his children,” Eunice Johnson said. “Joshua and Naomi made him laugh a lot. He’d put Josh on his back and horseplay. He’d tickle Naomi and Joshua and chase them around the house.”

Allen Johnson, 31, a Special Forces medical sergeant from Los Molinos, was killed April 26 when his unit was attacked by enemy small-arms fire while on foot-combat patrol in Khanaquin, Afghanistan.

He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

Allen Johnson, who was born in Sun Valley, loved to draw and ride horses as a boy and wanted to be a veterinarian. He attended elementary and middle schools in Burbank and enlisted in the military shortly after his 1991 graduation from Los Molinos High School.

“He was a fantastic child and a fantastic boy,” said his mother, Adriaantje Johnson. “He was my buddy and my friend and my only son.”

His older brother, Brian, was killed in a 1988 motorcycle accident at age 22.

Adriaantje Johnson said her son, a Washington Redskins fan, was headed for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo but opted for the military instead.

“We didn’t really have any money for him go to college, and he didn’t want to take any debt upon his shoulders,” she said. “His ultimate goal in life was to become a plastic surgeon.”

In 1996, Allen Johnson changed his military occupational specialty from infantryman to corrections specialist.

Two years later, he was accepted into Special Forces training and, in April 2000, began the more than two years of training to become a medical sergeant.

He met his future wife at a club in Fayetteville, N.C., during the summer of 2000 while both were acting as designated drivers for friends.

“Because he had long hair, I thought he was a civilian,” she said. “He wasn’t like a regular Army soldier with a high and tight” haircut.

She said it was his sparkle, smile and blue eyes that caught her eye.

Eunice Johnson, 31, a native of Puerto Rico, is assigned to the 525th Military Intelligence Brigade at Ft. Bragg.

During the couple’s 6-month courtship, a typical date was a trip to the gym and an occasional movie, she said. The couple were wed on Dec. 31, 2000.

“I will teach his kids what an awesome man he was, what an awesome soldier he was, and what he gave to the United States and to the American people,” said Eunice Johnson, who hasn’t yet told her children about their father’s death.

“I think they’re too young to understand,” she said. “I think it will come naturally in the right time.”

Johnson was posthumously promoted to sergeant first class and awarded Silver and Bronze stars, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal and the Combat Medical Badge.

In addition to his wife, son, daughter and mother, Johnson is survived by his stepfather, Ray Johnson, his father, Gary Haggerty; and a daughter from a previous marriage, Stacy, 9.

A funeral was held May 4 at the New Life Church Assembly of God Church in Corning, Calif.