Black WWI Vet Gets Posthumous Heroism Medal

The Army has agreed to give the Distinguished Service Cross to a black World War I soldier whose body was recently discovered buried at Arlington National Cemetery, an Army spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Lawmakers from New York, who had sought the military’s highest honor for Henry Johnson, responded with federal legislation to permit President Bush to award him the Medal of Honor.

The bill would also propose a review of the service records of other black World War I veterans to determine whether they were overlooked for awards of valor.

It was introduced Tuesday by Democratic Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton; Republican Reps. Benjamin A. Gilman and John E. Sweeney; Democratic Rep. Michael R. McNulty--all of New York.

Johnson, of Albany, N.Y., joined the Army National Guard’s “Harlem Hellfighter” unit during World War I. Because of strict segregation rules at the time, the black American unit fought under the French in Europe.

On May 14, 1918, Johnson fought off a German raiding party with a rifle and later with a knife after running out of ammunition. Although wounded, he was able to rescue a wounded comrade. France awarded Johnson its highest honor, the Croix de Guerre.

Johnson was the first American to receive the French accolade and was cited by former President Theodore Roosevelt as one of the five bravest Americans during World War I, New York Gov. George Pataki said.

Yet Johnson died in 1929, in his mid-30s, a poor alcoholic undecorated by his own country. For a long time it was believed that he had never been recognized in the United States, but records New York officials dug up as they gathered material to support his application for a Medal of Honor showed he had received some recognition after returning from Europe, including riding in a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan.

In January, the state Division of Military and Naval Affairs learned that Johnson was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. That came as a surprise to his son, Herman Johnson, 85, of Kansas City, Mo., who always believed his father had been buried in an unmarked grave underneath the tarmac at Albany International Airport.

The younger Johnson came to the cemetery of heroes with Pataki in January to decorate his father’s grave. Herman Johnson said at the time he believed racism was in part to blame for the military’s failure to decorate his father.

The Distinguished Service Cross, considered one of nation’s highest military honors, is awarded for extraordinary heroism in combat. It has been awarded to 12,450 people since it was created in 1918, Army spokeswoman Elaine Kanellis said.

But it isn’t good enough for Johnson, his supporters say.

“I think what he did deserves the Medal of Honor,” Herman Johnson said.

The bill introduced Tuesday, the World War I Veterans Medal of Honor Justice Act, would let Bush circumvent the Pentagon and award the Medal of Honor to Johnson.

The Medal of Honor process is supposed to begin within two years of a specific act of heroism. But since Johnson’s heroism took place more than 80 years ago, the military has resisted decorating him, Schumer and Clinton said.