SFC Dillard Johnson; the deadliest soldier
A couple of you have sent links to the New York Post article Sgt. 1st Class Dillard Johnson is the deadliest US soldier on record – with 2,746 kills, so I guess that if I don’t write something, my inbox is going to fill up about him. There was an SFC Dillard J. Johnson in C 3/7 Cav by a similar name. According to the DoD website, he did indeed (or someone with that name) earn a Silver Star. The name at the DoD’s website is “SSG Dillard (No Middle Name) Johnson”, though. I’ve already written the author of the article, Mr. Buiso, how he confirmed the number of “kills” SFC Johnson has;
With 2,746 confirmed kills, Sgt. 1st Class Dillard Johnson is the deadliest American soldier on record — and maybe the most humble.
As a commander of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle nicknamed “Carnivore,” Johnson, 48, helped lead the ground assault during Operation Iraqi Freedom, overwhelming the enemy with a relentless show of military might that left a trail of dead in his wake.
Johnson was obliged to report confirmed kills to his superiors, cataloging the dead in a green journal that revealed the astonishing tally — which only began to come light as he and co-writer James Tarr were researching his exploits for his memoir, also titled “Carnivore.”
I’m not trashing anyone, or calling anyone a liar in the absence of evidence to the contrary, but I’d sure like to see this “green journal”. I’ve never heard of a tally of “kills” cataloged in the name of individual soldiers and I can’t imagine that anyone would participate in such a grisly practice.
He counted the dead by tallying rifles — and human heads — among the mangled or charred wreckage left behind by the Carnivore.
In his second tour, in 2005, he took up sniping, logging 121 kills, his longest from 821 yards, a skill that was honed hunting in Kentucky. His total is second only to the late Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL who had 160 kills.
It might be true, who am I to question it – I wasn’t there, but members of a sister unit are questioning it in my emails, so…I have to think there’s something weak in the story. But, let’s sit and wait this one out and see what we can shake loose in the public forum.
Category: Who knows
Not much of a sniper if his longest kill was only 800 yards. During recruit training, every Marine qualifies out to 500 yards with iron sights on the M-16. Shooting someone from 800 yards with a purpose-built weapon and optics isn’t really much to brag about.
Don’t forget that he got the depleted uranium cancer from ‘firing over 7000 DU rounds’.
Never mind that the AP ready box only holds 70 rounds at a time and that loading either of the BFV ready boxes takes the weapons systems out of service during the process. A process that takes at least 2 crew members.
I am reasonably sure that anyone keeping a kill tally in a notebook and then trying to turn that into higher HQ would be sent to see the guys in white coats.
his “war” stories sounds fishy as hell, no BFV commander ever counts kills, thought kill tally’s were only reserved for snipers….7000 rounds of AP, now there’s a cool record!!!
He “took up” sniping?
That’s like “well on my last deployment I decided to volunteer for helicopter pilot duty and logged some time flying whirly birds…”
When your only exposure to the military is watching GI Joe: the rise of cobra, then I guess you think that we are all skilled in every form of combat imagined, versus specialized in skill sets.
Can’t even get 7000 rounds in ammo crates into the back of a CFV. This is bullshit. There were plenty of news stories on 3/7 CAV during OIF I and no mention of this “hero”. Considering there were reporters embedded with them (CDR was now MG Terry Ferrell) I’m certain we would have heard about it in the decade that followed.
Why would any sane professional want to count coup? Are there contests at the NCO Club where one throws down their kill-count book when challenged? How many people rates one a free beer?
Unless you believe some of the wilder estimates of total casualties from the current conflicts 2746 kills would represent a sizable percentage of all insurgents killed in Iraq (wiki has 26,320 as an estimate from all sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Overview._Death_estimates_by_group and the linked article doesn’t say anything about service for this soldier in Afghanistan). All from one troop? Or even from one vehicle?
Anyway-I took up surgery on my last deployment (in that I might be able to lance a boil or remove a toenail or debride a wound or sew up an incision) that totally makes me a surgeon, right?
Even if this guy was there for the entire war that amounts to 1 kill every twenty or so hours. 2700 plus confirmed kills in two years? Thats over 4 a day. I couldnt rack up four confirmed kills over three years in iraq as an infantryman. Unless 2700 iraqis were standing nut to butt in front of his bradley while he rolled over em theres no way he alone got all those kills and i dont know a single soldier that ever had a confirmed kill that would be happy to oblige anyone about his kill count…
“In his memoir, which goes on sale Tuesday…” is the most relevant aspect of the story.
“He counted the dead by tallying rifles…among the mangled or charred wreckage left behind by the Carnivore.”
Apparently he exclusively targeted enemy expandovans.
Cool name though.
Does killing 368 ants that inhabited my kitchen on the Great Flood Day count as confirmed kills? They even got into my cookies, so I dumped them into soapy water and then down the dispoal.
Might have been more. I obliterated long lines of ants waiting for wet, soapy cookies. Can I get a free beer for that?
He’s had eletric shock treatment from his stage three cancer. He’s GTG. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_is_SFC_Johnson
“As a commander of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle nicknamed “Carnivore,” Johnson, 48…”
48?
Mike
Ex-PH2: it only counts if you were sufficiently “humble” about it (while posing steely eyed with a pistol on your hip for the Newspaper photo). And no, you can’t have a beer, but we might be able to get you a cookie (to make up for the ones the ants got).
I knew I should have taken pictures.
Do we even have to verify? This guy is like Roland Haas, the now-deceased “CIA assassin” who was working for the US Army Reserve Command G-2 when he wrote a book detailing all of his bullshit. He, just like Haas, will get excused as exercising his First Amendment rights to write a book full of BS. And fiction doesn’t require pre-publication clearance from DoD.
As a former Garry Owen Trooper this annoys the hell out of me. I didn’t associate with most of the mouth breathers in Crazyhorse so I’m not sure if the guy in the picture is the same SSG Johnson in that troop.
@15, Mike, 48 works. Said he enlisted 1986, puts him born in 1965 and enlisted at 21 years old. Eligible to retire in 2006. Read the attached snippet of his book. Think what he’s doing is taking credit for any indirect fires he may have called in, bodies he’s seen and added a bit.
One man with a 2700+ body count? I remember a lot of problems associated with inflated body counts a few wars ago.
@ 19, WTF ? One of us needs to change names..lol
@22-Shit, I can’t tell the difference from here. Identical twins!
I think if he truly believes he killed that many it’s because he used faulty math in some way, and, like a good stubborn E-7 will not let anyone dissuade him from his belief. I was with 3/7 Inf 3ID(not cav, used to get a lot of confusion over that, even from people in 3ID) during the invasion. We steamrolled the Iraqi army. Anyone that stood their ground against us died. When we would overrun positions on the march north we would find rifles and other gear scattered about from how fast the Iraqis threw down their weapons and uniforms and fled. Perhaps this led to the inflation in his kill count? I can’t say for sure about his kill count, but reaching into my dusty memories I think one of the snipers on my second tour 04-05 had a BN high in the rage of 40-50, and that count only got so high because of our unit(2/2 Inf) taking part in the Battle for Fallujah. The little green journal, the one they make sound so ominous? well anyone that has served in the Army probably remembers those hard cover light green notebooks you could get from supply. The ones that all NCOs, myself included, carried. They just fit inside the cargo pocket of BDU pants. And as for #1 TopGoz comment, in a dense urban environment or in a overgrown palm grove, places you will operate a lot in over in Iraq, engagements out to 500 meters don’t happen. If you are on the ground in the urban setting the statistic I remember reading is that you will rarely see a rifleman engage targets at more than 100m. Shooting a man size target at 500m on a open flat range in the prone or kneeling at a range is relatively easy compared to trying to hit a man sized target that may be only partially exposed or constantly moving while you may yourself be under fire all while wearing 60-80 lbs of gear and sweating off the pounds in the heat. Back to the sniper in my unit, I… Read more »
Things that make me doubt his stories like these two links (thanks to Scotty) where he used his Gerber knife to slice through power lines. 1st story; he’s with his whole platoon (who hides in a building when you have a Bradley platoon, and how does a Brad platoon get “cut off” by insurgents?). 2d story; he’s alone with his spotter.
just took a hard look at him in the picture, the one of him at “his” gun range. Drop leg holster and ball cap with subdued US flag. I smell someone that can’t let it go or is a prepper.
@25-Jonn, as long as he cut it one leg at a time, using gloves and was not well grounded-this is doable at 220 Volts. Not saying it’s true-but we used to do it all the time when I was in utility work.
@21 Good point. Though the edge of my eyebrow is raised, I am withholding judgment until I see more details. Don’t know how much of this is just publisher hype to sell books or ghost writer poetic license.
I am certainly curious as to how he goes from a Brad cmdr to a sniper. Assuming he was a 19D, I don’t know any MTOE position where an 19D E-7 works as a sniper.Granted I’ve been away from the heavy side for a while. Even if he was only an E-6 or possibly an E-5 as Brad commander he was still likely an E-6 when he was sniping. As I recall even a straight leg sniper section during the appropriate OIF MTOE was lead by an E-6 and his admin and leaderships duties would certainly have kept him from spending a lot of time in a ghillie suit. (can’t imagine he went over to SOF for his second tour and not see that hyped.) But perhaps there was some ad hoc task org where his shooting skills were more important than his NCO skills.
Like I said I am withholding judgment until I see more facts. Especially from anyone who served with him.
Hoisting the bullshit flag high on this story.
John, I read an article about a soldier cutting electric wires with a Gerber knife, the story included a picture of said knife with two “divots” in the cutting edge from the electric current. I honestly can’t find it now, but the run up to it sounds like this guys story.
Yes, I always sever live wires with an uninsulate metal cutting tool like a pair of pliers.
The way an electric shock makes my muscles contract is just like getting hit by lightnng.
Now where’s my can of bullshit repellent?
Sorry, but I’d have to say if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is just that. That’s why sailors start their sea stories with “This ain’t no shit….”
Counting rifles is hardly proof of a confirmed kill. I seriously doubt he was “obliged” to count the dead during the invasion. If I pulled over to count corpses my CO would have yelled at me to stop taking pictures and get back in the war. If a single Bradley could credit themselves with even close to 2000 enemy dead the war would have been over the first week. The units in the invasion weren’t concerned with enemy kills. They were pushed to drive faster and farther.
The first words of the article call him “the most humble,” yet there he is on the NY Post selling a book. The article says he received 37 medals from two deployments. I’d believe 37 medals in his career. That one might have been sloppy reporting.
I spoke to my old plt sgt a few mins ago. Apparently he was there with us… he ran through the manifest list we all were given with a copy of our orders…. We were 2/7 inf Charlie Rock…. but this guys numbers are just crazy. He did earn his BSM since hes on DOD records as one of the admins showed me. But I havent found anything on his purple heart. Checked the purple heart .org and came up empty.
#33 He’s claiming four PHs.
wow wait…4 ph? fuck and i went through all of OIF1 and got nothing but a few arcoms an aam and my cib…. i ever enlist again im finding that guys offspring… i want 4 of the finest finery aswell
Can’t wait to hear the real story. It seems untrue, and if so, I’m hoping it’s a bona fide faker-faker, rather than someone with honorable service embellishing further.
also how does one just … take up sniping… unless its the authors laziness and not putting in that he was sniper qualified… one doesnt simply pick up a sniper rifle and have at it….
#36 oh he was active duty and stationed at stewart and he did his time in the sandbox…. the question now is how far did he embellish on his record
@37 11M, indeed. As he was a NCO scout I would think that at some point in his career he had the chance to go to sniper school. Indeed the article makes it sound like he became a sniper like they did it in ‘Nam, find the good ol’ boy from the backwoods that used to hunt and give him the sniper rifle and he’ll figure it out.
also, woohoo, another former 11-Mike right here.
just reread the article, he has a flag he took off Saddam’s limo? really?
I served with this piece of work in the ’90s- a most untrustworthy individual. I KNEW it was only a matter of time before he “graced” us here with his exploits.
Fuck it, man–any idiot can cut through a power line once…
ONCE.
Claims to still have a bullet lodged in his leg. He went into remission with his Cancer & returned to his unit in Iraq for a second tour. Then retired in 06 & worked as a contractor for another 4 years. Now he is living in FL & the cancer has returned. How quant.
Until reading some of the comments here, was willing to wait a bit before throwing the big BS card. Obviously there was something wrong with this story but whether it was a bit of poetic license (perhaps poor remembering) or largely a figment of someone’s imagination remained to be seen.
Sounds like there is mostly nonsense in whatever that memoir should correctly be called. Always a shame when folks feel a need to embellish what would otherwise have been honorable service.
Why do I get the idea that this guy’s purported “kill total” is like that “kill total” for Brandon Bryant, USAF drone-guy extraordinaire – e.g., the total for one of his higher HQs, possibly his Brigade’s/Regiment’s/Division’s. I could believe that for the enemy KIA total for a Division in Iraq, and might buy it for a Regiment/Brigade.
For an individual? Let’s see some serious documentary proof first, amigo.
Can’t wait to hear how he racks em up next month when he “takes up” piloting an Apache.
Four PH’s?
And he lives in Florida.
Seems to be a theme.
Just saying….
I wonder if his claims about DU poisoning are even true. I thought DU rounds were taken out of service by the time of the Second Iraq War. Aren’t they replacing the M919 with a tungsten core? Ah hell, anything I read about DU is always so vague and ambiguous.
@48.
I was low crawl guy.
I do no know.
@48 DU munitions are still around and some cancer cases have been attributed to them, but it was the targeted population that got sick (DU dust in the soil), not the gunners.