{"id":57,"date":"2005-12-21T07:21:57","date_gmt":"2005-12-21T07:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/alumni\/2005\/12\/21\/general-earl-johnson-%e2%80%9938\/"},"modified":"2005-12-21T07:21:57","modified_gmt":"2005-12-21T07:21:57","slug":"general-earl-johnson-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/2005\/12\/21\/general-earl-johnson-38\/","title":{"rendered":"General Earl Johnson \u201938"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin-top: 0\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/www2images\/punkandtom.jpg\" align=\"right\" \/><span style=\"font-family: 'Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'\">Here I sit trying to organize a boat load of photo CDs scattered all over my desk.&nbsp; In the process I came across a CD marked only as \u201cPunk\u201d &#8211; sent to me months ago.&nbsp; It immediately took me back to September 2002\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'\">I was the lucky one.&nbsp; <b>Steve Charles<\/b>, our exceptional <b><i>Wabash Magazine<\/i><\/b> editor, was traveling to interview <b>Major General Earl \u201cPunk\u201d Johnson &#8217;38<\/b>, class agent and legend.&nbsp; While Steve did his usual great job of interviewing General Johnson, I sat and listened like a little kid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'\">General Johnson, Wabash graduate and Air Force aviator, told stories about WWII that had me sitting on the edge of my seat.&nbsp; I was amazed at his recall \u2013 if the mission was on a Friday afternoon, he told us the date!&nbsp; General Johnson recalled training the aircrews whose missions would eventually bring the war in the Pacific to a speedy halt.&nbsp; He talked about flak so thick over Japan you could walk on it.&nbsp; He remembered the smallest details&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'\">Steve Charles, on the way back to Indiana, asked why I called him \u201cGeneral Johnson\u201d and not just \u201cPunk\u201d.&nbsp; After all, I encouraged everyone to call me \u201cTom\u201d or preferably \u201cGrunge\u201d.&nbsp; I told Steve I just couldn\u2019t call him anything but \u201cGeneral\u201d\u2026it just wouldn\u2019t be right\u2026or proper.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'\">Major General Earl Johnson\u2026one great guy\u2026what a Wabash man.&nbsp; I just wish I could have flown with him\u2026in a fighter, of course.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'\">Back to the CDs\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here I sit trying to organize a boat load of photo CDs scattered all over my desk.&nbsp; In the process I came across a CD marked only as \u201cPunk\u201d &#8211; sent to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/alumninews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}