Mick Johnson was at Landing Zone Jamie in Vietnam
PHOTO PROVIDED
Cpl. Mick Johnson, a member of the 1st Cavalry Division, sits at a 105 mm howitzer emplacement at Landing Zone Jamie near Tay Ninh, Vietnam, in 1969 shortly before they were almost overrun by North Vietnamese Army troops.
PHOTO PROVIDED
Mick Johnson, a 6-foot 4-inch pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1968, stands besides his mentor, Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda. They said Mick had a fastball he could throw through a brick wall.
SUN PHOTO BY DON MOORE
This is Mick Johnson today at 64 at his home in Venice.
Mick Johnson was “sluffing off” on a football scholarship at Philadelphia’s Villanova University in 1968. At the end of the school year he was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers as a minor league pitcher.“I played a half-season with the Dodgers. In September
’ 68 I lost my military deferment when I dropped out of college and was drafted into the Army at the height of the Vietnam War,” said the 64-year-old retiree, who now lives in the Bird Bay subdivision in Venice. “After eight weeks of basic at Fort Bragg and several more weeks of artillery training at Fort Sill, Okla., I was sent to San Francisco and put on a TWA flight to Vietnam.
