Fort Johnson
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Fort Johnson, formerly Fort Polk, is a United States Army installation located in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, about 10 miles (15 km) east of Leesville and 30 miles (50 km) north of DeRidder in Beauregard Parish.
Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division participate in an exercise in a simulated Iraqi village at the Joint Readiness Training Center.
Aerial view of Camp Polk during the 1940s
World War II POW Camp at Fort Polk in 1943
William Henry Johnson, commonly known as Henry Johnson, was a United States Army soldier who performed heroically in the first African American unit of the United States Army to engage in combat in World War I. On watch in the Argonne Forest on May 14, 1918, he fought off a German raid in hand-to-hand combat, killing multiple German soldiers and rescuing a fellow soldier while suffering 21 wounds, in an action that was brought to the nation's attention by coverage in the New York World and The Saturday Evening Post later that year. On June 2, 2015, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House.
Henry Johnson biographical cartoon by Charles Alston, 1943.
A 1918 lithograph dramatizing Johnson's actions in the war.
Command Sgt. Maj. Louis Wilson of the New York Army National Guard accepts the Medal of Honor on behalf of Johnson.
Tombstone of Henry Johnson at Arlington National Cemetery.