Medal of Honor recipient whose name adorns SC veterans’ hospital should not be erased | Opinion

Helen Richards was at home in Charleston when her 7-year-old daughter ran in with the news.

Two men in white suits were coming toward the house.

They told Richards that her younger brother had been killed in Vietnam.

It would be many months before the family knew what happened: that U.S. Marine Corps Pfc. Ralph Henry Johnson had dived onto a hand grenade, saving a fellow Marine at the cost of his own life.

He had just turned 19 in Vietnam, half a world away from where he’d grown up in Charleston. He’d been in Vietnam for less than three months, serving as a reconnaissance scout with Company A, First Reconnaissance Battalion, First Marine Division.

The citation when he posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Richard Nixon provided the details.

“In the early morning hours of March 5, 1968, during OPERATION ROCK, … Johnson was a member of a 15-man reconnaissance patrol manning an observation post on Hill 146 overlooking the Quan Duc Valley deep in enemy controlled territory. They were attacked by a platoon-size hostile force employing automatic weapons, satchel charges and hand grenades.”

When the grenade landed in his fighting hole, Johnson called out a warning to others then acted.

“Private First Class Johnson’s courage-inspiring valor and selfless devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service,” the citation reads. “He gallantly gave his life for his country.”

He was buried at the St. Phillip African Methodist Episcopal Church in what was a rural area in West Ashley, where he spent his first six years then his summers living with his grandparents.

His sister, now almost 83, said there was no fanfare or mention of heroism at the venerable Fielding funeral home downtown.

But for 57 years, she has worked to tell his story.

“It’s important because he doesn’t have a voice,” she told me last week. “My brother gave and gave and gave until he gave his life.”

One day, another stranger came to her door. He was a tall man from New York, who had a summer place in the Lowcountry, and he’d apparently researched her brother.

Francis Sherman Currey was also a Medal of Honor recipient for his heroic action during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

He thought Ralph Johnson should be buried in the Beaufort National Cemetery, and with his mother’s consent that happened.

Retired Gen. William Westmoreland spoke at a ceremony around Memorial Day in 1990.

Helen Richards was there and The Beaufort Gazette reported: “Tears streamed down Richards’ face during the half-hour ceremony, which was followed by a 21-gun Marine firing squad salute and the traditional playing of “Taps.”

In 1991, the Veterans Administration hospital in Charleston was renamed the Ralph H. Johnson VA Health Care System. Richards said it was the result of a drive led by U.S. Air Force Col. Walter “Bud” Fulda, a Vietnam veteran, with petitions signed at American Legion and VFW posts helping make the case.

In 2018, a U.S. Navy destroyer USS Ralph H. Johnson (DDG 114) was commissioned in Charleston, and The Citadel established a scholarship in Johnson’s name hoping to help Black students who couldn’t afford college.

In 2020, the hospital unveiled a new portrait of Johnson by artist Rick Austin of Folly Beach to hang in the lobby with the Medal of Honor and its citation.

Meanwhile, Helen Richards has become like family at the medical center, where they have an annual birthday party for Johnson. Every Monday morning, she serves coffee and snacks to veterans. Her family hosts an annual memorial luncheon for her brother, serving 250 veterans.

“It’s inspirational,” said VA spokesperson Wayne Capps. “She’s keeping her brother’s memory alive, but what a great testimonial it is to honor these veterans.”

Richards said, “If it wasn’t for the veterans, we wouldn’t have freedom. Veterans have given Americans a happy life. It may not be all the happiness we want, but they have given us a happy life. That’s why I tell my children Ralph’s story over and over and over, and they can tell their children.”

But in the back of her mind is a new concern, following President Donald Trump’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal workplace.

“I’m worried they’ll take Ralph’s picture out of the hospital, or that Ralph’s name will be taken off the hospital,” she said.

She pointed out that “Ralph never cast a ballot to vote, but he served his country.”

And in his day, it was a sharply segregated country.

Richards vividly recalls the moment Johnson said he wanted to be a Marine.

He was a little boy, and they’d gone to see a movie at the segregated Lincoln Theater on King Street in Charleston. Richards said that in those days, Blacks couldn’t even walk on the same side of the street as whites.

But that’s when he saw two Marines in uniform and said, “Someday I’m going to wear that uniform.”

And he did. With honor.

It’s a story that shouldn’t be forgotten, and definitely not erased.

This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Medal of Honor recipient whose name adorns SC veterans’ hospital should not be erased | Opinion."