The United States Army discharged Henry Johnson in February 1919 without noting his wounds, without noting his valor, and without awarding him the disability pay that his injuries should have made him eligible for. He had fought off a German raiding party at a forward outpost in the Argonne Forest with grenades, then with a rifle he eventually used as a club, then with a bolo knife when the rifle broke, and he had sustained 21 wounds in the process. He had dragged a fallen comrade out of the hands of soldiers trying to carry him away. The French Army had given him its highest combat honor. The United States Army had given him a discharge and an omission. When he died ten years later, broke and alone, the country that had used his image to sell war bonds had largely stopped paying attention.
## The Man Before the War
Henry Johnson was born on July 15, 1892, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The birth year has some uncertainty in the historical record — the BlackPast biographical entry gives 1897, while the National Park Service gives 1892 — but July 15, 1892, is the date supported by the NPS profile. He moved north with his family as a teenager, eventually settling in Albany, New York. He worked a range of jobs in Albany: soda mixer, coal-yard laborer, chauffeur, and finally redcap porter at Albany’s Union Station, handling luggage for arriving and departing passengers on the platforms of one of the major rail hubs of upstate New York.