The Ralph H. Johnson VA Health Care System will honor its namesake, Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Ralph H. Johnson, at 11:30 a.m. on January 10, 2025, in the VA’s main lobby with a birthday cake cutting celebration. Pfc. Johnson would have been 76 years old.
The event will begin with remarks from the Health Care System’s Director and CEO Scott Isaacks and will be followed with a birthday cake cutting celebration.
Pfc. Johnson was born in Charleston on Jan. 11, 1949. In 1967, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and deployed to Vietnam in 1968. During an ambush, a grenade was hurled into Johnson’s two-man fighting hole. Johnson selflessly threw his body onto the grenade and was killed saving his fellow Marines. For his heroic act, President Richard Nixon posthumously awarded Johnson with the Congressional Medal of Honor.
On Sept. 5, 1991, the Charleston VA Medical Center was formally renamed the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in honor of one of Charleston’s most heroic natives.
