Johnnie Williams: A well trained soldier

By Al Konieczka, Honor Flight Chicago Veteran Interview Volunteer

Johnnie Williams grew up in Gary, IN the oldest of 12 children. After graduating high school in 1961, he worked at White Castle for three years. He and his cousin were the first blacks ever to work at White Castle in Hammond, IN. In 1964 he applied for a job and began working at US Steel where he would ultimately retire from years later. In June of 1967 at the age of 24 he was drafted and went to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for his basic training. He received advanced training at Fort Polk, Louisiana and Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) training at Fort Benning, Georgia to prepare him for his time in Vietnam.

Johnnie recalled, “That training at NCO School was a little different. It was more on the lines of figuring out how Charlie worked, and learning how to use every weapon from a 45 to a 109. You name it and I could shoot it – even anti-tank missiles. I could break down anything and put it back together.”

After 10 months of training intensive, Johnnie had a short week back home before travelling to Fort Lewis in Washington and then on to Vietnam. Johnnie said that his 10 months of training stateside really prepared him for what he faced in Vietnam. They flew to Vietnam with their helmets and jungle fatigues on and arrived in Vietnam on April 1, 1968. They got off the plane and got their weapons from the belly of the plane and jumped onto trucks and headed to Bearcat Camp where he stayed for a month. 

Johnnie was part of a special elite squad of men, hand-picked at Fort Lewis due to their specialized training, who would be placed into difficult situations throughout his time in Vietnam. Johnnie was a bit emotional as he recalled his very first mission. “We were ambushed and our medic who slept next to me in the barracks was killed. We were pinned down that day about 3pm. We were in the canopy jungle and we were trying to get our wounded out. It was a three day mission and we were hit on day two. We had to get out and take our dead with us. It was like 100 degrees. I was the oldest at 25 so I carried one of our dead out on my shoulder. We walked from 3 in the afternoon until 7am the next morning. We had no water to drink until we reached a safe area the next morning.”  

That was Johnnie’s introduction to Vietnam. During his full 12-month tour he served in many dangerous missions despite being wounded twice. During one of his missions his squad was flown in by helicopter not too far from a village and came under heavy fire. They were fighting along a canal and they fought hard. Johnnie said, “The fighting was intense. I used about 11 ammo pouches of the 18 I carried with me. The VC were circling around us and I got hit in the leg. I made it to land and I felt like I had a heavy stone on my leg weighing me down. That’s how I got my first purple heart.”

Johnnie’s unit was in high demand. Because he had received the additional training at NCO school, and because he was quite a bit older than the other young men in his squad, they were always getting dropped in by helicopter into dangerous situations. Johnnie recalled one mission where a tank unit had been hit and his squad was sent in to help. “Three tanks got hit. On one tank the guy was laying on top and he was dead. On the other one, the Lieutenant was still alive. The other tank was just sitting there but we did catch a VC that day. The mud was so thick and deep, it was up over my thighs. So we caught one of the VC but the other got away because we couldn’t get through that mud.”

During his first five months in Vietnam, Johnnie went from location to location with no down time at base camp. Johnnie recalled one mission where they came into a very hot landing zone (LZ). “That area was hot! You could see the tracers in the air. The helicopter came down and one of the soldiers jumped out and was shot as soon as he hit the ground. We lost three helicopters that day. They put us in the back that day to protect the rear.”

Johnnie was lucky if he had 9 to 10 men in his squad. His next mission was at a rubber plantation near Saigon. He recalls seeing huge craters in the ground. “We ran an operation there in about my fifth month in Vietnam. They had these huge craters in the ground left from the Air Force bombs that were dropped. These craters were so big you could swim in them. We were very close to the DMZ, we could hear the bombs going off at night and see the lights in the night sky.”

One morning his squad was sent into Saigon, in the Cho Lon section, and they found themselves right in the heart of the fighting. Johnnie remembers, “I got pinned down but I was blessed. I could see the man in the building shooting at me and kids running in the street. I didn’t want to shoot any kids. So I was shooting at the guy in the apartment building and he was shooting at me. I remembered my training at NCO School and I curled myself up into a small space and I was lucky enough to be in a small crater so he couldn’t get to me. Finally one of my guys with a machine gun hit that apartment and I was able to get back.” Once they eliminated the threat, they had to go house to house and clear the buildings. Johnnie’s special squad had been trained in the US for this type of work. 

Johnnie admitted, “The first four months we didn’t know any better. We walked through mud and water every day and never changed our socks. We learned later on to carry an extra pair of socks so when we came into a fire base, we would change them out. When we headed out to the jungle, I had a stripped down backpack that I would use with my poncho, a small bed roll and food stuffed in an extra pair of tube socks. That’s how I travelled.”

Johnnie carried two canteens of water but was able to survive on just a half of a canteen of water in a week. He always wanted to be prepared in case they were out in the jungle longer than anticipated. He also wanted to keep some water for the other men in his squad. He was the oldest man in the squad and the only man of color.

After their mission in downtown Saigon, they sent his squad far outside of Saigon to see if they could make it back to Saigon across the mud. Johnnie told me, “We told them we couldn’t do that. One of our guys in the squad almost drowned in the mud. The only thing that saved him was we called in a helicopter to pull him out, that’s how bad it was. He was screaming as they pulled him out because the mud was trying to suck you down. We tried to make it to him and I got buried up to my waist in mud.”

They finally got to dry ground and could see Saigon off in the distance about 5-10 miles away. They started down another path and Johnnie was at the front – what he called the suicide squad. As he turned his head to the side, a landmine went off and he was hit with shrapnel and was bleeding from the ear and had a concussion. That was how he received his second Purple Heart. Johnnie took me back to that day. “They set me on the ground, I couldn’t move. I was crying and I had a strange experience like I was inside my body looking out of the holes in my face. One of the guys, our medic, finally said ‘John, just lay down’ and he pushed me down to the ground and I lay there a few minutes. My mind wasn’t registering what had happened to me. They called in a helicopter and took me to the hospital and I’m glad they did. The last thing I remember was climbing onto the helicopter. They tell me I was unconscious for four days.”

Johnnie was in the hospital about a week and the blast left him with permanent damage to the hearing in his one ear. Once he was released from the hospital he returned to his company. Johnnie’s elite squad received training back in the states so they could be up and ready in minutes when called upon for any mission thrown their way. Johnnie recalled his next mission after being released from the hospital. “It was 10 o’clock at night and they called us up and said you gotta go, we have a helicopter that had a kill and we need confirmation. We grabbed our gear and headed off to the helicopter pad in minutes. We got there and found three VC soldiers – two were dead and one was shot in the stomach. We radioed back that they had gotten their target.”

With all of the missions that Johnnie had been involved in, he became a hardened killer during his time in Vietnam. His unit was so efficient; the VC had actually put out a bounty on the entire Charlie Company. 

There was another time where his squad was assigned to check out an area where all of the vegetation had been destroyed by Agent Orange. “We came to a place that looked to me like a desert. It made no sense to me for us to be there but they wanted the area checked out. There was no vegetation for miles in all directions. It rained that night and I was on the ground with my poncho. I have COPD today and the doctors think I got it from sleeping on the ground in that field saturated with Agent Orange.”

After six months in the jungle, they put what was left of his company at a fire base outside of Saigon so they could re-build. He had lost a lot of men during the first six months in the jungle. They built the squad back up to 14 men and for the next six months Johnnie’s squad had many more missions and operations and was even assigned to perform missions with other Divisions.

Johnnie spent a total of 12 months in country. By the end of his tour, there was only himself and two others who arrived in Vietnam with him who made it back. For his last few months in Vietnam, Johnnie’s squad was split up. They sent guys in groups of two or three to work with the Navy in the Delta area around Saigon. 

Johnnie spent most of his final 11 days at the fire base near Saigon. He was then sent to the 9th Infantry base headquarters in Saigon to be processed out. It took about four days to be processed out and he flew back to Oakland, CA and then back home. Johnnie knew he had to serve three more months to complete his term. He thought he would be going to Fort Dix but they told him, no – you’re done. So within an hour, his time in the service was over.

Johnnie received many awards and decorations for his time in Vietnam including two Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star Medal, Air Medal, Combat Infantryman’s Badge, Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross, Vietnam Service Medal and Vietnam Campaign Medal.

Once he returned to civilian life he would wake up at 10pm and walk the streets. He was suffering from PTSD and still looking for a fight. Johnnie explained that he had returned to US Steel but also worked for a detective agency. “I would get out of bed at 2am and go to Chicago and take my gun with me looking for some action. I just wanted some action – you shoot at me and I’ll shoot at you. I would work for two hours and go home at 4am and sleep a bit before going to work at US Steel. I needed to keep myself busy.” Johnnie also worked part time for the Sheriff’s Department for 14 years. He finally retired from US Steel in 2003.

Johnnie still suffers from PTSD and in 2005 started going to the VA for counselling. He is currently in a PTSD group and sees another counselor at the VA center in Crown Point, IN.

Five months after returning home from Vietnam he married his fiancée on September 13, 1969. His wife Nellie has been his partner for 54 years. “I thank God for her every day. She keeps me in line. I call her my conscious. She keeps me from doing things I shouldn’t.” Johnnie admitted. 

He and his wife have built a wonderful family with four sons, thirteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He attends church and sometimes gardens with his wife and he loves to watch sports and attend ball games. 

Johnnie, thank you very much for your dedicated service. Enjoy your well-deserved trip to Washington D.C.!

Honor Flight Chicago, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is dedicated to a mission flying our most senior veterans to Washington DC to see the Memorials built in their honor. For information, go to www.honorflightchicago.org. Make tax deductible contributions online or send to: Honor Flight Chicago at 9701 W. Higgins Road, Suite 310, Rosemont, IL 60018-4703