{"id":142810,"date":"2023-06-14T11:40:18","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T15:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=142810"},"modified":"2023-06-14T11:40:18","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T15:40:18","slug":"fort-polk-officially-fort-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=142810","title":{"rendered":"Fort Polk officially Fort Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_142811\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-142811\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Photo-taken-of-then-Private-William-Henry-Hohnson-by-US-ARMY.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-142811\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Photo-taken-of-then-Private-William-Henry-Hohnson-by-US-ARMY-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Photo-taken-of-then-Private-William-Henry-Hohnson-by-US-ARMY-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Photo-taken-of-then-Private-William-Henry-Hohnson-by-US-ARMY-500x281.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Photo-taken-of-then-Private-William-Henry-Hohnson-by-US-ARMY-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Photo-taken-of-then-Private-William-Henry-Hohnson-by-US-ARMY.jpg 992w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-142811\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">Photo taken of then Private William Henry Johnson. (US ARMY)<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As of yesterday, Fort Polk was officially renamed Fort Johnson, after Sergeant William Henry Johnson. Johnson was an African-American who enlisted into the Army during World War I. He was assigned with a French unit and fought even when he ran out of rounds. He was posthumously awarded both the Purple Heart and the Medal of Honor.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><strong>From CNN Politics:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Johnson, who was awarded a Purple Heart and Medal of Honor posthumously, enlisted two months after the US became officially involved in World War I and began his military career in a segregated New York regiment based in Harlem, the Army said in a statement last month.<\/p>\n<p>During his deployment to France, where he was assigned to a French infantry unit, Johnson fought off a German raid with the butt of his rifle that ran out of rounds, as well as &#8220;grenades, his fists and a bolo knife to kill four German soldiers&#8221; and save a fellow American soldier, according to the Army. He was severely injured and suffered 21 wounds, and was unable to return to his job as a porter after the war.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson was outspoken about the racism experienced by Black soldiers, for which the Army punished him by canceling the speaking engagements that he was assigned after his heroic actions. He died in 1929 of myocarditis following a tuberculosis diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a Black American whose bravery wasn&#8217;t acknowledged at the time, Sgt. Johnson personified the Army values and was the epitome of strength,&#8221; said Brig. Gen. Isabel Rivera Smith, the director of joint staff for New York National Guard, in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The branch-wide push to remove the names of Confederate leaders from military bases came amid increased focus on racial inequalities following George Floyd&#8217;s murder in 2020. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last year approved a proposal by a congressional commission to rename nine bases in honor of several people of color who made significant contributions with their service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/06\/13\/politics\/fort-polk-johnson-renamed-us-army\/index.html\">CNN<\/a> Politics, <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/louisianas-fort-polk-renamed-after-african-american-wwi\/story?id=100037471\">ABC News<\/a>, and others provide more details\u00a0to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As of yesterday, Fort Polk was officially renamed Fort Johnson, after Sergeant William Henry Johnson. Johnson &hellip; <a title=\"Fort Polk officially Fort Johnson\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=142810\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Fort Polk officially Fort Johnson<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-army","category-veterans-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=142810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=142810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}