“General Colin Powell, the renowned four-star general who has served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as Secretary of State, learned of my sculpture and liked it so much that he had it brought down to Washington to display it at the Pentagon. General Powell invited me down to the unveiling of "Coming Home".  While I was there, I walked between General Powell and one of the Navy's top admirals as we made our way through the Pentagon for about a mile and a half, along many corridors, as hundreds of people we passed saluted all three of us.  I was telling both of them how much fun it was because I was just a white hat in the Navy.”- Seward Johnson

 

Seward Johnson served for 4 years in the US Navy during the Korean War, aboard the USS Gloucester (PF-22). This experience was an inflection point in his life that instilled the ideas of collaboration and working as a unified community.