Gilbert Johnson

Sergeant Major Gilbert "Hashmark" Johnson (October 30, 1905 – August 5, 1972) was one of the first African Americans to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, and one of the first African American drill instructors in the U.S. Marine Corps. Johnson was known as “Hashmark” because he had more service stripes than rank stripes. He retired in 1959 after 32 years of service in the U.S. military, 17 years were as a Marine.

The Biography appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Johnson. Portions of this Biography may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.