On this episode of Our American Stories, Jason Porter shares with us the story of how he met WWII veteran Forrest Johnson and how “Forrie” became his best friend.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories.
And today we have a story of friendship from a
former marine, Jason Porter. Here's Jason with a story of
his best friend, Forrest Johnson aka Fari.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I used to go to breakfast several times a week
right over here at the Red Hot End, and he
was always there, every single day at a certain time.
And he sat by himself, and he had a hat
on and it said ninety fifth Infantry on it, and
it had a you know, you see veterans wear pins
and stuff on their head, but he had a combat
(00:49):
infantryman's badge on his pin, and I knew he was
a World War Two veteran. And I observed him for
several weeks or months, never talked to him, and finally
I'm like, I got a I gotta go talk to
this guy. We spent a ton of time just talking,
drinking coffee, and through that he brought me to the
(01:09):
Veterans group. And this veterans group was very unique when
I got there because I was by far the youngest
guy there. Most of them were all World War Two veterans.
I'm actually seeing guys here at this group like you
would read about just incredible events that you would see
on the History Channel or study about. These guys were
(01:30):
actually there. So I met guys who actually landed at
ewo Jimo, who actually parachuted in on Normandy on D Day.
There was a guy who was on the USS Indianapolis.
I met guys who unlocked the gates at Dacau. Like,
these are the kind of guys I got to meet
there and they talked among veterans, among friends, among peers, unvarnished,
(01:55):
and these guys are really the greatest generation my heroes.
I really looked up to these guys. When people look
at Europe, everybody thinks of D Day, Well, D Day
was like that was the very very beginning of the campaign.
When D Day happened, there was about four or five
or six divisions that landed on the beach that day.
(02:17):
The ninety fifth is actually known for the campaign and
met leading up to that campaign. That's where for Y
in his unit. You know, they were decimated there really,
so they form in nineteen forty two. They trained and
lived together twenty four to seven three hundred and sixty
five for approximately two years. They're the Plank Owners. They're
(02:40):
the first original organic group of guys that come together
to form this division. And once they deploy into France
and they deploy into the battlefield, those outfits get consumed
by casualties in the battle. So he joined in forty
two and he deployed to France with Patten's third Army
(03:04):
in the ninety fifth Infantry and left the battlefield on
November tenth, nineteen forty four. In the assault on Ammenviller's
for he talked about a guy was was shooting at him,
a sniper was shooting at him, and he took a
rifle grenade, and a rifle grenade, you put it in
the end of the barrel of your rifle, and he
(03:26):
shot and it went up in the top of a
barn and he got the guy that was shooting at him.
They continue the assault, and for he went to cross
a road like a platoon is on one side, the
other guys on the other side. And have you ever
heard of a German eighty eight. So it's designed to
shoot planes out of the sky at tens of thousands
of feet. Well, the Germans actually then employed them as
(03:49):
anti tank and then anti personnel. And the thing that
makes this thing so incredible was the velocity of the round.
So for he and his guys, they're moving up the
street and for you, at some point had to cross
the street and there's a German eighty eight like two
miles away, has the street just dialed in, and a
(04:11):
German eighty eight hits aside for he, So it shoots
down the road and blows up and just blows into
a cone. So it had for he been completely in
that impact zone, I mean, he wouldn't have been alive.
I would have never been friends with him. But he's
just on the fringe of it, and it catches his side.
(04:33):
It blows a bunch of his gear off, his leg
and hip is just destroyed, blown apart. And he talked
about praying at that point, and he said he knew
that God had comforted him, and he knew he was
going to live to see his son. How he knew that,
I don't know, but that was his testimony. A couple
of his guys run across the road snatch him up.
(04:55):
The German eighty eight continues the fire. The German infantry
is maneuvering on them and a counter attack, so they
scoop them up. They run him to the back to
basically the other side of a building or a courtyard.
Another guy grabs him, but they throw him on the
hood of a jeep, not strapped down or anything. The
jeep takes off across the potato field full boar. Well,
(05:18):
guess what's happening to the jeep. The jeep is being
fired upon, and as for he's trying to hang on,
he's blown apart. They go across the potato field up
over the hill. The guy's never see him again. That's it.
It's like what happened to Forrest Johnson. So after for
he was wounded and evacuated off the battlefield on ten
(05:40):
November nineteen forty four from Ammonviller's friends, he went into
the hospital recovery, came home, he tried to pick up
his life when he got home. He had a son,
and his son had lived with his grandparents, which would
have been for his mom and dad. So when four
(06:00):
he came home, he tried to connect with his son. Well,
his son didn't really see him as dad because he'd
been gone after the hospital recovery and whatnot, and all
the time in service. He'd been gone nearly four years,
so the boyd saw Grandpa as the father figure. So
that was a real struggle and then just struggling to
(06:24):
be back. But one of the absolute highlights of his life,
which he talked about often like this was like one
of his best memories of his life, was the ninety
fifth Infantry Division reunion nineteen fifty So this would have
been five years after the war. They had it in Chicago,
(06:44):
and somehow for he found out about it. So they
haven't talked since ten November nineteen forty four. Right here
comes the reunion in nineteen fifty four. He shows up
in the afternoon, maybe a day laid, I don't know,
but he walks into the hotel in Chicago, and he
sees a whole bunch of his friends.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And what a story we're hearing, folks. And when we
come back, we're going to find out what happens when
the fiftieth reunion celebration with the ninety fifth Infantry, Well,
when all those guys meet the guy they hadn't seen
since November ten, nineteen forty four. The story of Farie
Johnson continues here on our American story. Folks. If you
(07:31):
love the great American stories we tell and love America
like we do, we're asking you to become a part
of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that
America is a good and great country, please make a donation.
A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and seventy six cents
is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to
Our American Stories dot com now and go to the
(07:52):
donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot com. And we returned to
Our American Stories and Jason Porter telling us the story
(08:13):
of his friend and hero World War Two veteran Fari Johnson.
Jason picks up the story in nineteen fifty as Fari
walks into a reunion full of his old buddies, man
who thought that Fari was killed in action fighting Nazis
back in nineteen forty four.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Fary walks up behind him and says, what kind of
clown outfits you guys around here? You give some disparaging
remarks and those guys turn around like they are just
gonna felt somebody, And they turn around and see Fory Johnson,
the guy that they'd seen get blown up. He described
how they just hugged him and it was just an incredible,
(08:53):
incredible reunion. So they were there four days and they
went on a bender, talked about, you know, things that
happened on the battlefield after for he was hit, who survived,
who didn't survive. So one of the things that they
did is they had a gigantic Nazi flag. If you've
seen the giant red flag with a big white background
(09:16):
with the Swashika in the middle of it. They had
a huge one of them that they pulled off of
Gestapo headquarters in ham Germany. Somebody brought this flag out
and over the course of the reunion that was held
at this hotel, all the surviving members of his company
signed that flag. So when I met For he sixty
(09:39):
years later. As members of his company began to dwindle
over the time, that flag, each guy would have it
for a while and they'd maybe get give a talk
at a VFW post, a elementary school, stuff like that.
So when I met for he had the flag. It
was his turn to have the flag. Then he'd busted
(10:01):
out and we'd look at it. We'd look at the
names on it. One time, we try to call a
couple of the guys on the on the flag. You know,
this is kind of pre Facebook and stuff like. It
was a little harder to find guys. So every year
Forty would invite me to go to the division reunion. Well,
then the division reunion I got to there was just
nobody there. Twenty twelve, I talked to Fury. I said, Forty,
(10:24):
that flag really needs to be in the museum. He's like, well,
it's not my flag. I can't give it away. Okay, Well,
I'm not pushing them or anything, but I'm like, I
don't really want to see it stuffed under a bed
or something like when you're gone. It should go somewhere
as and mean something. So he agreed to bring it
to the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans.
(10:47):
And at this time there was three guys from his
company that were still alive. I set up a meeting
with the curator at the museum. I'm like, hey, these
veterans are coming in. They have this flag. I told
him the background of the flag. You know, they want
to pass it off to you. So I pack up
for a Johnson, bring him on flight. He's in a wheelchair.
(11:10):
I'm pushing them all through security. You know, it's quite
a chore to get them down there. Once we get
down there, Hal Smith and his wife they roll in,
I think on a motor home, and the other guy,
I can't remember, he comes in and they're just hanging
out and talking and they have the flag. And the
next day, at noon or one o'clock, we're going to
turn the flag over to the museum. Right. So I
(11:33):
sit back and I just basically serve these guys, bring
them sandwiches, bring him drinks, and they're just they're talking
about the war, their life. You know, they're old men,
but they're talking like they're twenty two, and they are.
Although sixty five some years had passed, they are still brothers.
They're bonded by their time and service and what they
(11:54):
did together. So the time is approaching. I'm like, all right, guys.
You know, hey, it's eleven o'clock. At one o'clock, we
got to be at the museum, right, guys. They're like,
oh yeah, yeah, good, good, get us another beer. I'm
like all right. And it gets down to one hour
and I'm like, all right, guys, in an hour, you know,
we need to start pack up and go and the
(12:16):
museum's ready to receive us. And I'm like, all right, guys,
half hour. You know, let's let's wrap it up. And
I don't remember which one I want to say it
was for. He turned around, He's like, tell him, we're
not coming. We'll decide next year. The guys didn't want
to break up the meeting. They didn't want to give
up the flag because that gave him a reason to
(12:40):
see each other again. Because if they gave up the flag,
they didn't have an excuse to meet up the next year.
There was no next year because by that time next
year they were all gone, and Fury was the last
man to have the flag, and he was the last
one from that unit. I don't know what happened to
the flag. He wanted something meaningful to happen with it,
(13:03):
so maybe it is in the museum. I don't know.
I was sitting right next to him the last time
that I spoke with him. He kept in a briefcase
right next to his chair, and I visited with seven
or eight days before he before he died, and it
was sitting there. Forty Johnson lived several blocks from church
(13:23):
where my wife and I attended church, and I would
go down the road and visit for it, have coffee,
have breakfast, and one day I walked up to his house.
His screen door was open. He had his breakfast in
front of him, and he was in the middle of praying,
and he was praying out loud. So I just kind
of paused. I didn't want to barge in on him
(13:45):
or interrupt him, and I couldn't help but overhearing him
a little bit, and it was amazing to hear him,
just simple prayers of an elderly man talking to God.
And he thanked God for saving his life in World
War Two. His little boy that was four or five
(14:07):
years old and came back. He later died when he
was very, very young, and he talked about wanting to
see his son. He talked about his surviving children and
wanting them to know God and know Christ, and the
line I always remember, He's like, help me do good
stuff and not bad stuff. Amen. And I paused for
(14:29):
a minute and I walked. He said, Hey, Jason, how
you doing get the coffee? This and that. So after
the New Orleans handing off the flag incident where we
didn't actually hand off the flag, I believe it was
the following summer, I get a random phone call. It's
a voicemail from forty. It said, Hey, why don't you
(14:52):
and Valerie come over, bring the kids, bring your swim trunks.
We're going to have a party. And it's on Tuesday
afternoon at four. You know who has a party at
four in the afternoon on Tuesday, Well, four he did.
And he's like, I'm I want to see you, guys.
I'm getting down to the end, you know, and I
want to see you. And then he just abruptly hung
(15:12):
up the phone and I wrote he lived. He lived
at a tea intersection. I rolled up there on Tuesday
afternoon at four, and I'm not kidding you. There was
cars lining the street, both sides of the street, all
three directions for two blocks. At this guy's house, ninety
(15:37):
some year old man. It was his kids, his grandkids,
his great grandkids, all of his friends that he worked
with at GM, all of his guys that were still
alive from the the Veterans Group. It was absolutely packed.
You almost needed, you know, traffic control there. I couldn't
believe it, and I was. I was so happy, and
(15:58):
he was very happy. And one of the things he said,
we were sitting around talking, He's like, Hey, why does
everybody wait for the funeral to do this, and I
think he kind of knew that was in August and
then he died January first. It was just so so
wonderful to see all those people turn out for him.
(16:22):
It was just a real privilege to know him. It's
like him and all of his peer group were my heroes.
And getting to spend that time was valuable because you know,
when I met all those guys in the early two thousands,
you know, ten years later they're not around. We don't
get to hear their voices anymore. We get to read
it off a page. You know. He certainly wasn't a
(16:44):
perfect guy or anything, but he was very, very genuine
and he was my best friend, you know, although we
were fifty some years separated, and he was my best
friend for a long time and I miss him.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And you've been listening to Jason Porter talking about his
friend Farie Johnson, and Jason made an important decision that
one day when he decided not to just say hello
and move on to that old guy sitting there with
a hat that indicated he fought in World War Two.
He got to know him, and we should all do that,
by the way, with soldiers and just strangers, because that
(17:24):
person would end up being your best friend and you
can end up learning a whole lot about.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Life from them.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And I keep thinking about those simple prayers of an
elderly man. God helped me do good stuff and not
bad stuff. And a special thanks to Charlock Carroza, who
is a Hillsdale graduate, and a special work for us
bringing us stories like these, just beautiful stories. Fari Johnson's
story in a way Jason Porter's too. Here on our
(17:52):
American stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories.
And today we have a story of friendship from a
former marine, Jason Porter. Here's Jason with a story of
his best friend, Forrest Johnson aka Fari.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I used to go to breakfast several times a week
right over here at the Red Hot End, and he
was always there, every single day at a certain time.
And he sat by himself, and he had a hat
on and it said ninety fifth Infantry on it, and
it had a you know, you see veterans wear pins
and stuff on their head, but he had a combat
(00:49):
infantryman's badge on his pin, and I knew he was
a World War Two veteran. And I observed him for
several weeks or months, never talked to him, and finally
I'm like, I got a I gotta go talk to
this guy. We spent a ton of time just talking,
drinking coffee, and through that he brought me to the
(01:09):
Veterans group. And this veterans group was very unique when
I got there because I was by far the youngest
guy there. Most of them were all World War Two veterans.
I'm actually seeing guys here at this group like you
would read about just incredible events that you would see
on the History Channel or study about. These guys were
(01:30):
actually there. So I met guys who actually landed at
ewo Jimo, who actually parachuted in on Normandy on D Day.
There was a guy who was on the USS Indianapolis.
I met guys who unlocked the gates at Dacau. Like,
these are the kind of guys I got to meet
there and they talked among veterans, among friends, among peers, unvarnished,
(01:55):
and these guys are really the greatest generation my heroes.
I really looked up to these guys. When people look
at Europe, everybody thinks of D Day, Well, D Day
was like that was the very very beginning of the campaign.
When D Day happened, there was about four or five
or six divisions that landed on the beach that day.
(02:17):
The ninety fifth is actually known for the campaign and
met leading up to that campaign. That's where for Y
in his unit. You know, they were decimated there really,
so they form in nineteen forty two. They trained and
lived together twenty four to seven three hundred and sixty
five for approximately two years. They're the Plank Owners. They're
(02:40):
the first original organic group of guys that come together
to form this division. And once they deploy into France
and they deploy into the battlefield, those outfits get consumed
by casualties in the battle. So he joined in forty
two and he deployed to France with Patten's third Army
(03:04):
in the ninety fifth Infantry and left the battlefield on
November tenth, nineteen forty four. In the assault on Ammenviller's
for he talked about a guy was was shooting at him,
a sniper was shooting at him, and he took a
rifle grenade, and a rifle grenade, you put it in
the end of the barrel of your rifle, and he
(03:26):
shot and it went up in the top of a
barn and he got the guy that was shooting at him.
They continue the assault, and for he went to cross
a road like a platoon is on one side, the
other guys on the other side. And have you ever
heard of a German eighty eight. So it's designed to
shoot planes out of the sky at tens of thousands
of feet. Well, the Germans actually then employed them as
(03:49):
anti tank and then anti personnel. And the thing that
makes this thing so incredible was the velocity of the round.
So for he and his guys, they're moving up the
street and for you, at some point had to cross
the street and there's a German eighty eight like two
miles away, has the street just dialed in, and a
(04:11):
German eighty eight hits aside for he, So it shoots
down the road and blows up and just blows into
a cone. So it had for he been completely in
that impact zone, I mean, he wouldn't have been alive.
I would have never been friends with him. But he's
just on the fringe of it, and it catches his side.
(04:33):
It blows a bunch of his gear off, his leg
and hip is just destroyed, blown apart. And he talked
about praying at that point, and he said he knew
that God had comforted him, and he knew he was
going to live to see his son. How he knew that,
I don't know, but that was his testimony. A couple
of his guys run across the road snatch him up.
(04:55):
The German eighty eight continues the fire. The German infantry
is maneuvering on them and a counter attack, so they
scoop them up. They run him to the back to
basically the other side of a building or a courtyard.
Another guy grabs him, but they throw him on the
hood of a jeep, not strapped down or anything. The
jeep takes off across the potato field full boar. Well,
(05:18):
guess what's happening to the jeep. The jeep is being
fired upon, and as for he's trying to hang on,
he's blown apart. They go across the potato field up
over the hill. The guy's never see him again. That's it.
It's like what happened to Forrest Johnson. So after for
he was wounded and evacuated off the battlefield on ten
(05:40):
November nineteen forty four from Ammonviller's friends, he went into
the hospital recovery, came home, he tried to pick up
his life when he got home. He had a son,
and his son had lived with his grandparents, which would
have been for his mom and dad. So when four
(06:00):
he came home, he tried to connect with his son. Well,
his son didn't really see him as dad because he'd
been gone after the hospital recovery and whatnot, and all
the time in service. He'd been gone nearly four years,
so the boyd saw Grandpa as the father figure. So
that was a real struggle and then just struggling to
(06:24):
be back. But one of the absolute highlights of his life,
which he talked about often like this was like one
of his best memories of his life, was the ninety
fifth Infantry Division reunion nineteen fifty So this would have
been five years after the war. They had it in Chicago,
(06:44):
and somehow for he found out about it. So they
haven't talked since ten November nineteen forty four. Right here
comes the reunion in nineteen fifty four. He shows up
in the afternoon, maybe a day laid, I don't know,
but he walks into the hotel in Chicago, and he
sees a whole bunch of his friends.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And what a story we're hearing, folks. And when we
come back, we're going to find out what happens when
the fiftieth reunion celebration with the ninety fifth Infantry, Well,
when all those guys meet the guy they hadn't seen
since November ten, nineteen forty four. The story of Farie
Johnson continues here on our American story. Folks. If you
(07:31):
love the great American stories we tell and love America
like we do, we're asking you to become a part
of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that
America is a good and great country, please make a donation.
A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and seventy six cents
is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to
Our American Stories dot com now and go to the
(07:52):
donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot com. And we returned to
Our American Stories and Jason Porter telling us the story
(08:13):
of his friend and hero World War Two veteran Fari Johnson.
Jason picks up the story in nineteen fifty as Fari
walks into a reunion full of his old buddies, man
who thought that Fari was killed in action fighting Nazis
back in nineteen forty four.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Fary walks up behind him and says, what kind of
clown outfits you guys around here? You give some disparaging
remarks and those guys turn around like they are just
gonna felt somebody, And they turn around and see Fory Johnson,
the guy that they'd seen get blown up. He described
how they just hugged him and it was just an incredible,
(08:53):
incredible reunion. So they were there four days and they
went on a bender, talked about, you know, things that
happened on the battlefield after for he was hit, who survived,
who didn't survive. So one of the things that they
did is they had a gigantic Nazi flag. If you've
seen the giant red flag with a big white background
(09:16):
with the Swashika in the middle of it. They had
a huge one of them that they pulled off of
Gestapo headquarters in ham Germany. Somebody brought this flag out
and over the course of the reunion that was held
at this hotel, all the surviving members of his company
signed that flag. So when I met For he sixty
(09:39):
years later. As members of his company began to dwindle
over the time, that flag, each guy would have it
for a while and they'd maybe get give a talk
at a VFW post, a elementary school, stuff like that.
So when I met for he had the flag. It
was his turn to have the flag. Then he'd busted
(10:01):
out and we'd look at it. We'd look at the
names on it. One time, we try to call a
couple of the guys on the on the flag. You know,
this is kind of pre Facebook and stuff like. It
was a little harder to find guys. So every year
Forty would invite me to go to the division reunion. Well,
then the division reunion I got to there was just
nobody there. Twenty twelve, I talked to Fury. I said, Forty,
(10:24):
that flag really needs to be in the museum. He's like, well,
it's not my flag. I can't give it away. Okay, Well,
I'm not pushing them or anything, but I'm like, I
don't really want to see it stuffed under a bed
or something like when you're gone. It should go somewhere
as and mean something. So he agreed to bring it
to the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans.
(10:47):
And at this time there was three guys from his
company that were still alive. I set up a meeting
with the curator at the museum. I'm like, hey, these
veterans are coming in. They have this flag. I told
him the background of the flag. You know, they want
to pass it off to you. So I pack up
for a Johnson, bring him on flight. He's in a wheelchair.
(11:10):
I'm pushing them all through security. You know, it's quite
a chore to get them down there. Once we get
down there, Hal Smith and his wife they roll in,
I think on a motor home, and the other guy,
I can't remember, he comes in and they're just hanging
out and talking and they have the flag. And the
next day, at noon or one o'clock, we're going to
turn the flag over to the museum. Right. So I
(11:33):
sit back and I just basically serve these guys, bring
them sandwiches, bring him drinks, and they're just they're talking
about the war, their life. You know, they're old men,
but they're talking like they're twenty two, and they are.
Although sixty five some years had passed, they are still brothers.
They're bonded by their time and service and what they
(11:54):
did together. So the time is approaching. I'm like, all right, guys.
You know, hey, it's eleven o'clock. At one o'clock, we
got to be at the museum, right, guys. They're like,
oh yeah, yeah, good, good, get us another beer. I'm
like all right. And it gets down to one hour
and I'm like, all right, guys, in an hour, you know,
we need to start pack up and go and the
(12:16):
museum's ready to receive us. And I'm like, all right, guys,
half hour. You know, let's let's wrap it up. And
I don't remember which one I want to say it
was for. He turned around, He's like, tell him, we're
not coming. We'll decide next year. The guys didn't want
to break up the meeting. They didn't want to give
up the flag because that gave him a reason to
(12:40):
see each other again. Because if they gave up the flag,
they didn't have an excuse to meet up the next year.
There was no next year because by that time next
year they were all gone, and Fury was the last
man to have the flag, and he was the last
one from that unit. I don't know what happened to
the flag. He wanted something meaningful to happen with it,
(13:03):
so maybe it is in the museum. I don't know.
I was sitting right next to him the last time
that I spoke with him. He kept in a briefcase
right next to his chair, and I visited with seven
or eight days before he before he died, and it
was sitting there. Forty Johnson lived several blocks from church
(13:23):
where my wife and I attended church, and I would
go down the road and visit for it, have coffee,
have breakfast, and one day I walked up to his house.
His screen door was open. He had his breakfast in
front of him, and he was in the middle of praying,
and he was praying out loud. So I just kind
of paused. I didn't want to barge in on him
(13:45):
or interrupt him, and I couldn't help but overhearing him
a little bit, and it was amazing to hear him,
just simple prayers of an elderly man talking to God.
And he thanked God for saving his life in World
War Two. His little boy that was four or five
(14:07):
years old and came back. He later died when he
was very, very young, and he talked about wanting to
see his son. He talked about his surviving children and
wanting them to know God and know Christ, and the
line I always remember, He's like, help me do good
stuff and not bad stuff. Amen. And I paused for
(14:29):
a minute and I walked. He said, Hey, Jason, how
you doing get the coffee? This and that. So after
the New Orleans handing off the flag incident where we
didn't actually hand off the flag, I believe it was
the following summer, I get a random phone call. It's
a voicemail from forty. It said, Hey, why don't you
(14:52):
and Valerie come over, bring the kids, bring your swim trunks.
We're going to have a party. And it's on Tuesday
afternoon at four. You know who has a party at
four in the afternoon on Tuesday, Well, four he did.
And he's like, I'm I want to see you, guys.
I'm getting down to the end, you know, and I
want to see you. And then he just abruptly hung
(15:12):
up the phone and I wrote he lived. He lived
at a tea intersection. I rolled up there on Tuesday
afternoon at four, and I'm not kidding you. There was
cars lining the street, both sides of the street, all
three directions for two blocks. At this guy's house, ninety
(15:37):
some year old man. It was his kids, his grandkids,
his great grandkids, all of his friends that he worked
with at GM, all of his guys that were still
alive from the the Veterans Group. It was absolutely packed.
You almost needed, you know, traffic control there. I couldn't
believe it, and I was. I was so happy, and
(15:58):
he was very happy. And one of the things he said,
we were sitting around talking, He's like, Hey, why does
everybody wait for the funeral to do this, and I
think he kind of knew that was in August and
then he died January first. It was just so so
wonderful to see all those people turn out for him.
(16:22):
It was just a real privilege to know him. It's
like him and all of his peer group were my heroes.
And getting to spend that time was valuable because you know,
when I met all those guys in the early two thousands,
you know, ten years later they're not around. We don't
get to hear their voices anymore. We get to read
it off a page. You know. He certainly wasn't a
(16:44):
perfect guy or anything, but he was very, very genuine
and he was my best friend, you know, although we
were fifty some years separated, and he was my best
friend for a long time and I miss him.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And you've been listening to Jason Porter talking about his
friend Farie Johnson, and Jason made an important decision that
one day when he decided not to just say hello
and move on to that old guy sitting there with
a hat that indicated he fought in World War Two.
He got to know him, and we should all do that,
by the way, with soldiers and just strangers, because that
(17:24):
person would end up being your best friend and you
can end up learning a whole lot about.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Life from them.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And I keep thinking about those simple prayers of an
elderly man. God helped me do good stuff and not
bad stuff. And a special thanks to Charlock Carroza, who
is a Hillsdale graduate, and a special work for us
bringing us stories like these, just beautiful stories. Fari Johnson's
story in a way Jason Porter's too. Here on our
(17:52):
American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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