Navy corpsman Michael Vann Johnson Jr. was killed Tuesday while tending to a Marine wounded in battle in Iraq.
He was hit in the head by shrapnel from a grenade and fatally injured, his sister, Janisa Hooks, told The Associated Press in Little Rock, Ark., where Johnson was born and raised.
Johnson, 25, was a hospital corpsman third class who had been assigned to travel with Camp Pendleton-based Marines in Iraq.
"He provided medical care right up to the time he was killed," said Doug Sayers, spokesman for the San Diego Naval Medical Center, where Johnson had been stationed.
Johnson had worked at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot since June 2001, helping oversee the health care of thousands of recruits, Sayers said.
"A big hole has been ripped in the soul of the clinic down there," Sayers said. He said Johnson's co-workers were too distraught to speak about him yesterday.
Johnson's mother, Jana Norfleet, said she had recently received a letter from her son saying that he was going to be all right. She said he wrote that "God had twisted a guardian angel around him."
Johnson graduated from Parkview High School in Little Rock and earned a degree from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
He and his wife lived in San Diego. Informed of her husband's death early yesterday, Cherice Johnson spent most of the day with friends at the Serra Mesa military apartment she shared with her husband.
Other wives and Navy officials said she did not plan to make a statement. A note taped to the front door of the home asked reporters not to disturb those inside.
"Please do not knock or bother us right now," the single sheet of paper read. "The family is in mourning and do not wish to speak with the media."
Library researcher Beth Wood contributed to this report.
