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Americans will gather on the Fourth of July to watch parades, wave flags and marvel at fireworks displays. War veterans will recognize the activities as reminders that our country’s independence emerged from the crucible of war, but for most Americans the July Fourth holiday has become a celebration of summer, more closely tied to watermelons and barbecues than to the sacrifices associated with warfare.

Rhinelander resident Glen Johnson was a member of H Company, 501st parachute infantry regiment, when he was dropped too far behind enemy lines during the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944.

“I think what a lot of people should do today is they should go through a veterans hospital. It would wake them up. They would see that the price of freedom has never been free,” he said.

Johnson, whose unit served as the historical basis for the film “Saving Private Ryan,” was captured by the Germans and spent over a year in a prison camp near the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia. He escaped with two other prisoners during a heavy snowstorm and spent the next six months at large behind enemy lines.

While Johnson’s extraordinary story would be easy to glorify, he remembers the war for the stark reality it posed to him as a young man.

“Seeing your friends being killed, and if you’ve never seen it before, you don’t know what war is. That was the hardest part. Nobody knows what war is until they’re actually in it,” Johnson said.

After escaping from the prison camp, Johnson and his two companions walked toward the American lines at night, hiding in barns or in the woods during the day. One morning, Johnson watched a British plane fall from the sky. He followed the drop lines of the parachutes and located two British airmen. After convincing them of his allegiance to the Allied cause, Johnson returned to his makeshift camp with the two airmen in tow.

“Since they had come by plane they knew exactly where we were and they knew where most of the troops were moving. We followed their directions and finally got back to the American lines,” he said.

The journey of those five Allied soldiers from behind enemy lines to safety was a perilous one, and Johnson remembers it vividly.

“We came to a river and found a boat stuck in the mud. We got some tree branches to use as paddles. That boat was leaking badly. Two of us paddled and the other three baled. We were going downstream faster than we were going across. It sounds funny now but we weren’t sure we would make it,” he said.

When Johnson finally made it back to the American Army camp, he weighed less than 100 pounds. World War II is a distant memory now. Many of the its veterans have died. But Johnson says his experience during the war has defined nearly every phase of his life. His wife, his friends and his relationship to his country are all, in some way, results of his wartime experience.

After the war, Johnson returned to Wisconsin. One weekend, he decided to journey from Racine, where he lived, to Fond Du Lac to visit Jim James, a friend he met in the prison camp during the war. Annie James, Jim’s sister, answered the door. A year later Glen Johnson married Annie James and the two were inseparable until Annie died two years ago. Johnson is still extremely emotional when he speaks of his deceased wife.

“My wife liked to do things for others. She was always at the nursing home baking cookies and she would always take me along. She was Greek, and very, very good,” he said.

Like many veterans of his generation, men who had grown up during the Depression and served in the century’s defining military conflict, Johnson rarely talked about the hardships associated with his experience during the war.

“Most of us held it in. It’s nothing to talk about. Who wants to talk about things like that? Until the first bullet passes you, you have no idea what it’s like,” he said.

But while the men rarely talked about their experiences at war, even to one another, they did cling to each other, forming life-long friendships and long-standing civic associations with other veterans.

“For a while I was bitter when I got out. Three and a half years of the best part of my life gone. But after a while, Annie and I would say, ‘Look at the friends we made,’” Johnson said.

Johnson and his wife stayed active organizing reunions for the 101st Airborne and the 501st infantry. They started three businesses together and raised a son. Prime examples of our country’s Greatest Generation, the Johnsons were proud of their family, their state and their country.

Johnson says he can’t remember all of his war experiences or all of the faces of his friends who died. He stayed in touch with the two British airmen who escaped with him until their deaths last year.

The Fourth of July is an emotional time for Johnson. It’s a time he remembers his contribution to our country’s freedom. It’s also a time he remembers his friends and his wife. He intends, he says, to attend the parade in Rhinelander this year.

But as the fire engines, floats and flags pass him by, Glen Johnson will remember the war that defined his life. After all of the love and the loss he has felt, Johnson still believes the true gift of America is the liberty to live without fear.

“I think [veterans] appreciate our freedom more than anyone because we know what freedom is. We’ve all got our complaints about this country, but it’s still the best place in the world,” he said.

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S. Schug wrote on Jul 4, 2008 9:07 AM:

" God Bless You for reminding us what freedom really costs, and for putting into perspective what the 4th of july really represents. Many of us need that reminder.May God Bless You for what you did to help us to keep our freedom! "

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