[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 156 (Sunday, September 28, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2150-E2151]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               TRIBUTE TO SERGEANT MAJOR JOHNNIE ROBINSON

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN M. SPRATT, JR.

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                       Sunday, September 28, 2008

  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I wish to call the attention of the House 
to a remarkable citizen, Sergeant Major Johnnie Robinson, of Rock Hill, 
SC. Johnnie Robinson served for 27 years in the Army, including tours 
in Korea and Vietnam, and rose to the rank of Command Sergeant Major. 
When he retired from the Army, he kept on serving. For 22 years he was 
Quartermaster and Commander of VFW Post 2889 in Rock Hill, SC, and also 
State Commander of the VFW. Under his leadership, Post 2889 became one 
of the largest posts in the State, and by everyone's estimation, one of 
the best. Among his proudest accomplishments: handsome new quarters, a 
building 11,000 square feet large.
  Johnnie Robinson has passed the torch to a new generation, and 
stepped down as commander, but to commemorate all that he has done for 
veterans, the VFW, and Post 2889 in particular, the post today is 
naming its ballroom for him.
  Madam Speaker, I ask permission to enter into the Record the 
following account from the Rock Hill Herald of Johnnie Robinson's 
service to community and country, and not least, to veterans and the 
VFW.

                   [From the Herald of Rock Hill, SC]

                VFW Legend Paved the Way for Local Vets

       Few places are known to a city by one face like Rock Hill's 
     Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2889 is known by Johnnie 
     Robinson.
       For most of the past 22 years, Robinson has been commander 
     of the almost 500-member post, among the largest in the 
     state. The few other years, he was quartermaster in charge of 
     raising and accounting for the post's money.
       Robinson has spoken about service and community to throngs 
     at the local football stadium and to small groups of 
     students. He has helped raise and give tens of thousands of 
     dollars for veterans, widows and the children of veterans.
       He helped start and organize an honor guard that still 
     serves at military funerals and other functions.
       He has been the state VFW commander and held national posts 
     in the organization of more than 1.6 million members 
     nationwide.
       He has bent the ears of local, state and federal 
     politicians to make sure veterans get better treatment and 
     raised a stink if he didn't like the answers he got.
       Robinson helped the post move from an old building on Main 
     Street into what is now an 11,000-square-foot building down 
     the block. He brought the first black member into the post 
     decades ago, walking in with an arm on the guy's shoulders 
     saying, ``Meet one of us.''
       But now it is over. Robinson, 77, has given up his 
     commander's hat. He didn't run in the recent yearly post 
     elections.
       ``It was time for somebody else to lead,'' he said.
       That somebody else is Ray Bentley, elected the new 
     commander, but even Bentley said following Robinson isn't 
     easy.
       ``The man is a legend,'' Bentley said. ``Leadership is what 
     Johnnie was always about.''
       The post is having a banquet September 27 to honor 
     Robinson, and to name the ballroom in his honor. Politicians, 
     combat veterans and dignitaries will toast what this guy has 
     meant to the little guys who fought in wars. One of those 
     speakers will be Pat Nivens, veterans affairs officer of York 
     County, whose job it is to help veterans get benefits. 
     Robinson is respected and well-known around the country in 
     veterans' circles as a veterans' rights advocate, Nivens 
     said.
       To outsiders, the VFW might look like a smoky barroom where 
     old vets drink cold beer and tell war stories. That it is at 
     times, and few places are as tough as at the bar rail of the 
     VFW if somebody is a boaster who can't back up claims about 
     heroism or combat.
       But the VFW is a lot more, offering veterans advocacy and 
     assistance and helping with community functions ranging from 
     scholarships to flower sales for deceased veterans' children. 
     Robinson is not to be found at the bar.
       But he has been found where soldiers are since joining the 
     post more than 30 years ago. When a group of area National 
     Guardsmen went to Iraq and then Afghanistan, Robinson led the 
     drive for the post to adopt the whole unit so money could be 
     raised for families.
       Robinson then worked to enlist those men from 178th Combat 
     Engineers in the VFW when those men came home: More than 60 
     of those newest vets joined.
       ``This is their VFW, not mine,'' Robinson said. ``We serve 
     combat veterans, and we serve the community. I only hope I 
     serve both.''
       Robinson himself--not a representative--attends every local 
     military send-off, every welcome home. Why? Maybe it's two 
     wars and 27 years in the Army ending up as a command sergeant 
     major--the highest enlisted rank there is.
       He joined as a teenage kid straight off the cotton-chopping 
     fields of rural Lancaster County. He was in the Nevada desert 
     for atomic bomb tests, the cold killings of Korea, the hot 
     killings of Vietnam. He doesn't have to read about Agent 
     Orange--he lived through it, and he has lived through cancer 
     because of it.
       ``I came home from Korea to California on a ship, then took 
     a bus across the country to Columbia,'' Robinson said. ``I 
     had to take another bus to Lancaster. I couldn't say I was 
     coming home because we had no phone in those days.
       ``I came home alone, and nobody knew I was coming until I 
     got there. People need to be there at these ceremonies to 
     show these guys what they do matters.''
       Robinson's membership at the post continues, and he will be 
     around to help. He'll pull in driving his red pickup truck, 
     with an old South Carolina license plate from 1990 on the 
     front bumper.

[[Page E2151]]

       The plate says disabled veteran. The tag number states 
     simply that Robinson was and remains in this city: ``VFW 1.''

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