NEWSMAKERS
January 27, 2016
Longtime Vandebilt coach passes away
January 27, 2016
For Suzie Johnston, the math was pretty simple.
If you could spend a fortune on clothing that honors the New Orleans Saints or any favorite sports team, you could dig a little deeper to donate socks, long johns, wet wipes or snacks to the team fighting for freedom in far off lands.
“It’s a crying shame how many kids are over there that don’t get anything from home,” she told The Times in 2012, when she was working to make people realize that while the nation’s deadly involvement in Iraq was coming to a close, soldiers, sailors and marines were still being deployed in Afghanistan.
As founder and a very active member of the Blue Star Mothers, Suzie spent every spare hour she had raising money for care packages, or working with other family members to pack, seal, address and mail them to service members.
The work continues, but must go on without Suzie, who succumbed to cancer Jan. 13, leaving behind the son who survived multiple deployments – and inspired her mission, as well as her husband, two daughters and four grandchildren.
“She was a very stubborn woman but it was in a good way,” her son, William “Billy” Johnston, said. “People would tell her it can’t be done and she would prove them wrong.”
Billy remembers how his decision to join the Marine Corps in 2004 did not sit well with his mom. As he prepared for his first deployment to Iraq in 2006, Billy told a disconsolate Suzie that he had to go, so that other people with his specialty, attack helicopter mechanics, could be rotated back to the states and be with their families, and she appeared to take comfort from that.
Years later, when he himself was having doubts and troubling thoughts while preparing for yet another stint in the belly of the beast that was Iraq, it was Suzie who comforted him, reminding him of the words he once spoke to her.
During his first deployment, Suzie dutifully sent supplies to Billy that she thought could increase his comfort in the hostile environment.
“We were a small unit so we were pretty close, and I knew that a lot of guys wouldn’t receive any support from home,” Billy said, explaining how he had mentioned this to Suzie. “The first thing she told me was, ‘I want a list of everyone in your unit who is not getting care packages.’”
Along with other service moms like Mona Delatte of Choctaw, Suzie organized the drives that led to mass mailings of packages, their goal firm that no one serving overseas should be wanting. Community support mushroomed, but for Suzie it was never enough.
She was not a stranger to expending energy and time toward a good cause, having volunteered for the American Red Cross for many years.
“She was dedicated to the Red Cross,” said Pauline Dillie, with whom she worked on relief projects. “We worked through many hurricanes and fires. She was very dedicated and determined and, even when she was ill, she wanted to continue to volunteer.”
Pauline did not have a child on active deployment, but joined Suzie in her Blue Star Mother efforts.
One of Suzie’s daughters, Jessica Gregoire, recalls the days when Suzie was most active in the Red Cross.
“She went to Florida, to Oklahoma, with the Red Cross,” Jessica said. “She worked to help people from Katrina, Rita, all of those storms. I remember her driving down the bayous to help.”
Jessica said fulfillment of her mom’s desire to help was not limited to formal work with the Red Cross or the Blue Star Mothers, but acts of kindness she took upon herself that were not common knowledge. There were veterans she drove to and from medical appointments, and to whom she gave other assistance.
She grew up in Amelia, Jessica said, the daughter of Nolan and Patricia Chaisson.
After meeting William Johnston III, a radiation safety officer, she married him in 1981 and the couple set up housekeeping in Schriever. In addition to Billy and Jessica they raised another child, a daughter named Alicia.
Suzie would continue her work for the Blue Star Mothers, she told everyone, “until the last one was home.”
“She was still a grandma and a mom and she made sure the soldiers had what they needed to make them feel special,” Jessica said. “She truly devoted herself.”
There were personal hobbies that Suzie loved, including collecting sports memorabilia, and time spent with her grandchildren, Kayden, Dakota, Ellie, and Averie, gave her joy as well.
When the cancer made its presence known Suzie and her loved ones were determined to make what time she had matter, which included a trip to Florida. In August, there was a family water balloon fight, a reminder of earlier good times when Suzie’s children were growing up.
“She knew what the inevitable was and she believed there was no point in having a pity party,” Jessica said.
Although frail, Suzie helped Jessica pick out her wedding dress, and although mostly bed-bound attended her marriage to Dwayne Gregoire in September.
When she passed, Suzie was surrounded by family members, who say they are determined to continue her Blue Star Mothers work.
“We still want to be involved in it,” Jessica said. “We are not closing out that chapter of her life.”
Jackie Hansen, a Houma veteran who supported the Blue Star Mothers’ crusade, mentioned Suzie in a Facebook post after her death, calling her “a true friend to all veterans.”
“She is one of the main reasons thousands … in Iraq and Afghanistan received a care package from home,” Hansen said. “No doubt in this veteran’s eyes there has been posted an angel in heaven.”
In interviews during the Iraq war, Suzie said she understood the role that family members of service men and women play in defending the nation by supporting the ones in uniform. The way she played that role, Billy Johnston agreed, makes her the closest thing there is to a Marine without induction.
“They told us in the Marine Corps that for the ones who fly, they can’t do it without the mechanics, because we fix them, if you weren’t repaired you couldn’t fly. It all starts from your support,” Billy said. “She not only supported us in the Marine Corps, but the Army, the National Guard. I would like to consider her as one of us.” •
William “Billy” Johnson is pictured with his mother, the late Suzy Johnston. The founder of the local Blue Star Mothers, Suzy provided countless soldiers care packages. She died earlier this month of cancer.
