Today is Veterans Day, and this story belongs to a young soldier from Michigan named Johnny Lang.
Johnny met Elvis Presley in 1958, first on the troop train and then on the USS General George M. Randall, the ship that carried them on a 10-day trip to Bremerhaven, Germany. Johnny served in the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment as a reconnaissance scout. He was with Elvis in Germany until 1960.
Their first meeting set the tone. Johnny asked Elvis to sign pictures for his sister, his mother and his grandmother, and Elvis signed every one.
Johnny gave him a nickname, too. He called Elvis “Babe,” after Babe Ruth, because “Elvis was to music what Babe Ruth was to baseball.”
Johnny was happy to tell his Elvis stories to anyone who asked, and here he is on camera sharing one from their Army days.
Johnny Lang tells an Army story about Elvis
The moment Johnny never forgot came during combat training at Grafenwoehr, Germany, “on a shivering February day.”
Elvis was sick in his bunk in the barracks. Johnny sat with him, and he finally asked the question that had been on his mind for a while.
“All the people you know in the world, and all the fame you have, why are we friends?”
Here’s Elvis’s answer, the way Johnny wrote it years later in his essay “My Friend Elvis” for the Veterans Breakfast Club.
“I’ll tell you something, Johnny, you and I are friends because if I was a janitor, you’d still like me . . . and thank God, I’m not.”
Johnny didn’t make a speech back. He did something instead.
“I got up and I took the blanket and pulled it up to his chin. “Babe, you take care of yourself.” I’ll never forget that.”
After the Army, Johnny went home to Michigan and spent 30 years at J&L Steel in Warren. He was married 30 years, raised five kids and had nine grandkids. And he never stopped telling them about Elvis.
“At twenty-two years old, I remember thinking to myself, “One day I’m going to tell my kids about this.” And boy, did I tell them, many times over.”
It was his son who finally pushed him to write it all down. Walking out of the 2022 “Elvis” movie with the family, he asked his dad if he was ready to write a book. Johnny was. “My Army Days with Elvis: Friendship, Football & Follies” came out in January 2023.
Now for the twist neither of those young soldiers saw coming.
In his 2023 essay, more than 60 years after that cold day in Germany, Johnny wrote: “I’m now eighty-eight years old, and I still keep busy doing janitorial work at Expert Machine Repair, Inc. in Roseville, Michigan.”
The janitor in Elvis’s little joke turned out to be Johnny. He wasn’t complaining, either. At 88 he chose to stay busy, and he was proud of the work.
He’d also held on to two gifts from his friend. Elvis gave him a watch on the USS Randall in 1958, engraved “To Johnny From Elvis,” and a Ronson lighter at Christmas in 1959. Johnny still had both in 2023, and in this short clip he holds up that watch for the camera.
Johnny shows the watch Elvis gave him
When Johnny talked about Elvis, he didn’t start with the fame or the records. He started with the man.
“He had a great laugh, for sure, but an even greater heart. That’s why I loved the guy.”