Navy Hospital Corpsman Michael Vann Johnson Jr. was at the front of a battalion of U.S. Marines in Iraq when enemy soldiers opened fire on the group March 25, 2003.
Johnson, who was attached to the battalion as a medical officer, was helping those injured in the gunfight when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle.
The man whom the battalion affectionately referred to as "Doc" was killed. It was six days before the Little Rock native's 26th birthday.
Johnson was the first of more than 100 Arkansans who have died in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, armed conflicts in the Middle East that are sometimes referred to as the war on terror.
More than 200 people on Saturday gathered at the Sherwood Forest recreation center in Sherwood for the 12th annual Tribute to Fallen Heroes Ceremony to honor those killed in the conflicts. Current and former military personnel joined elected officials, veterans advocates and American Legionnaires in prayer, song and remembrance.
Several of those who attended were Marines who fought alongside Johnson the day he died in Iraq. Their commander, U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Carl Mundy, also attended.
Mundy, in an account of Johnson's death that led some to tears, recalled a stillness in the air after the gunfight had ended. Beneath that stillness, there was anger.
"I could see the pain on their faces," he said. "I could hear it in their voices."
Mundy said Johnson had only recently joined the battalion and he didn't know him well. But he came to understand Johnson's character by witnessing his actions that day and seeing how other Marines reacted to his death.
"When I moved forward to the scene of that fighting that day, that morning, shortly after the fighting ended, it became crystal clear to me what kind of individual Doc Johnson was," he said.
Central Arkansas high school students enrolled in the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps read aloud the names of soldiers who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan at Saturday's ceremony.
There was Jonathan Cheatham, 19, of Camden, an Army private who was killed July 26, 2003, in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Baghdad.
There was Army Master Sgt. Kevin Morehead, 33, of Little Rock, who died Sept. 12, 2003, during a raid in Ramadi, Iraq.
And there was Stacey Brandon, 35, of Hazen, an Army staff sergeant killed April 24, 2004, in a mortar attack in Taji, Iraq.
One chair was left empty at the ceremony in honor of prisoners of war and soldiers who have been reported missing in action.
Mundy on Saturday praised the dead as men and women of courage and conviction.
"They were not victims," he said. "It's important to note that a victim is someone who was taken advantage of, someone you feel sorry for because they got taken advantage of. Not so with those killed in action. They knew very well who they were and what they were doing and what they stood for. And to recognize them and to think of them in terms of being a victim diminishes the virtue, the true virtue, of what they did."
Some family members of those killed in combat attended the ceremony.
Air Force veteran R.D. Kinsey, commander of American Legion Post 74 in North Little Rock and ceremony organizer, said it was important for those families to be there.
"We want you to know that we share in your loss," he told them, "but we do hope and pray that what we do, year after year for 12 years, that it does continue to offer healing, support and encouragement."
Metro on 04/09/2017