JOHN JOHNSON

He's Traded One Army for Another


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Rhoda Amon



November 29, 2003



At 8:30 sharp on Monday morning -- and every weekday morning through Dec. 24 -- retired Army Lt. Col. John Johnson will be on the job. His mission: to pick up toys for the Salvation Army to deliver to 4,557 Suffolk children.



It's a different agenda with a different kind of army, but the former combat infantry officer approaches his toy-collecting duties with all the military discipline and heart with which he defended an American outpost against a Viet Cong attack 34 years ago in Vietnam.



The only thing that would interrupt his daily rounds, Johnson said, would be a disaster on the scale of the downing of Flight 800 or a fire storm in the pine barrens, which would call for mounting an emergency assistance team to service the rescue workers.



It was this kind of mission that originally drew the old soldier to the Salvation Army Suffolk Extension in 1996. A friend, the late Monde Vidal, suggested to then-director John Juston that Johnson, with his military logistics background, could develop a training program for emergency disaster service.



Johnson not only devised a training program, he was soon on the job himself, taking canteens of hot coffee, water, snacks, sometimes warm socks -- whatever is needed -- to support crews at emergency sites.



"John has never said no, no matter what time of day or night I call him," said Debbie Riccio, assistant director of the Salvation Army Suffolk Extension at Blue Point. "He treats every gift to a child like it's for his own child. For our annual golf outing, he's on the job at 6 a.m. with a canteen for the golfers. It's important to him because the golf outing raises funds to send children to sleepaway camp who would never get a chance to go otherwise."



Then she adds, "And he's taught me to be more efficient."



Johnson, 68 and casually at home at Salvation Army headquarters, credits his military training for his work habits as a volunteer. He chuckles as he recalls the problems he had following Riccio's directions to toy pick-up sites. Finally he told her, "Debbie, I've been on reconnaissance missions that were easier than finding the places where you send me." He then proceeded to teach her to prepare more precise directions.



For Johnson there are no shortcuts when it comes to delivering gifts for children. "I love children," he said. "I've seen too many hurt in war. There are no good wars."



From the time he was a boy in Dublin, Ga., however, he wanted to be a professional soldier. He joined the Army as a private soon after graduating from high school, and continued his education at a series of schools, including officer training school, airborne school and special warfare school. His education also included two tours in Vietnam as an adviser in 1962-63 and again in 1969-70.



As a young lieutenant on duty in Germany in the '50s, he met a young teacher from Southampton on Long Island, who had come to work at the American dependents' school. Married in Aschaffenburg, they rode to the reception on an M48-A2 tank bedecked with garlands of flowers.



Mary Cynthia Johnson makes it possible for him to be a full-time volunteer, he said. "You have to have an understanding wife." The couple has five children and six grandchildren.



He retired after 20 years of service with a chestful of medals, including three Bronze Stars, and worked for private firms, retiring again in 1995. "This is payback time," he said.



On Veterans Day he goes to the Calverton National Cemetery with his oldest son, Greg, 44, and his grandson Christopher, 15.



"I fell in love with Long Island," said Johnson, who now makes his home in Patchogue. He later fell in love with the Salvation Army people. "They have no hidden agenda," he said. "They do good for the sake of doing good."



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