LTC Johnson graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in August 1960 and was commissioned as an Infantry second lieutenant.
LTC Johnson served in positions of increasing responsibility culminating as a company commander with the 3rd Battalion (Mechanized), 19th Infantry in Munich, Germany. He later served as a Battalion staff officer and Battalion senior advisor to the 7th Regiment, 5th ARVN Division, Republic of Vietnam. He served a second assignment in Vietnam as the deputy senior advisor to the Commander of the US Army Ranger Command in Pleiku.
LTC Johnson, after earning a graduate degree in Operations Research (ORSA), served in successive and increasingly important senior staff planner positions in the Pentagon with the J5, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairman OJCS Crisis Planning and Assessment Group. He later worked directly for US Marine Corps General P. X. Kelly with the mission of creating the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force. LTC Johnson retired in 1981.
LTC Johnson is a prolific collector, researcher, and publisher particularly related to European edged weaponry and captured enemy war booty. His eight-volume collector series entitled Collecting the Edged Weapons of the Third Reich is considered the standard upon which all references on this subject are judged. Based on this expertise, he was selected by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D. C. to appraise a large, donated edged weapon collection.
LTC Johnson and his wife, Antonia, reside in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
