The knife fight is the most dramatic element of the accounts of the action, and it is the element that multiple early accounts — the Irwin article, the French military commendation, the later Roosevelt assessment — specifically describe. It was also the element that the Army in 1919 chose not to put in Johnson’s discharge papers.
## The Speaking Tour and Its Exhaustions
The period between Johnson’s return in February 1919 and the beginning of his visible decline was brief, and the speaking tour that he undertook in that period is documented in enough detail to understand something of its character.
He was invited to speak about his experiences at events across the country — to civic organizations, veterans’ groups, churches, and other gatherings that wanted to hear from a soldier who had done what Johnson had done. He had a story to tell that was specific and dramatic, and he told it. The speaking engagements were part of the moment of post-war public celebration that the 369th’s Fifth Avenue parade had opened.
The specific strain of the speaking tour is part of what multiple accounts describe: a man with 21 wounds, including a shattered left foot, standing up at podiums and recounting events that had occurred at extreme physical and psychological cost. The wounds were not invisible; anyone who saw Johnson walk understood that he had been seriously injured. The speaking engagements put that injury on display in a context that expected performance without acknowledging the continuing cost.
The speaking invitations dried up over time, as the country’s attention moved to other things. The transition from celebrated speaker to forgotten veteran was not sudden; it was gradual, the specific gradual process by which a moment of public attention recedes.