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Life After
Captivity: Shoshana Johnson Marches On
Excerpts from Interview by
Abigail Pesta
21 December 2011
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As the troops pull out
of Iraq, Shoshana Johnson, the former prisoner of war taken
captive along with
Jessica
Lynch, describes the battles she still faces. Shoshana
Johnson joined the Army with dreams of becoming a chef. Her
plan: to cook for soldiers and earn some money for culinary
school. Five years later, she found herself lying on the
ground in Iraq, struggling to protect her head as a group of
Iraqi men kicked her repeatedly in the stomach, face, and
bullet-torn legs. She remembers their triumphant shouts.
It was the start of the
war, in March 2003, and her unit was under attack after
making a wrong turn into the city of Nasiriyah. A
30-year-old mother of a toddler at the time, Johnson became
a prisoner of war, along with four men from her unit. Two
women—Jessica
Lynch and Lori Piestewa—were captured separately. A
badly injured
Lynch
was rescued by U.S. forces nine days later. Piestewa didn’t
survive. Johnson and the men were rescued along with two
helicopter pilots after 22 days.
It was an ordeal that
Johnson, now living in her hometown of El Paso, Texas, still
struggles to put behind her, while she moves forward with
her life. As the U.S. troops pull out of Iraq, we checked
in. |
 |
You were held hostage in various jails and homes
around Baghdad, kept apart from the men. Did you think you would get out
alive?
I went back and forth. Some days I
would think, I’m going home. Then I’d hear a bomb blast or gunfire
really close. The U.S. was bombing the daylights out of Baghdad. One
time a bomb shook the house—there was a deafening boom, and I thought we
would die. I could hear the guys through the walls, and that helped. We
would all call out to each other, checking in. “Joe, are you OK?”
“Patrick, are you OK?” Those 22 days were hard—I don’t know how people
survived for eight or nine years in captivity in Vietnam. You’re
accustomed to your freedom. You have to rely on someone just to take you
to the bathroom.
How did you survive with bullet
wounds to your legs?
The bullets had gone through and
through, and at the time of the ambush, with all the adrenaline, I
didn’t really feel the shots at all—just a burning sensation. Later, in
captivity, I felt it. The guards actually cleaned me up, and brought me
to a hospital to operate. They put me under with a general anesthesia.
So the guards treated you
decently?
Some of the guards were helpful, as
long as you weren’t combative. They gave one guy, Patrick, a really hard
time, because he was singing that Toby Keith song, the one that goes,
“Don’t mess with the U.S. of A. We’ll put a boot in your ass.” They beat
him up, and took his wedding ring. That really made him mad. I would
shout at them to just leave him alone. Looking back, I realize there
were moments when I was just arrogant. One day they brought me this
breakfast, this mush. I was like, I’m not eating it. They could have
stopped bringing me any food at all.
"I have certain triggers, like when I see war
scenes on TV—the military, uniforms, Iraq. If I watch that, I'll have a
flashback later." . . .
You’ve struggled with posttraumatic stress
disorder over the years. How are you doing now?
I go to therapy on a regular basis,
and I’m learning coping mechanisms. I have certain triggers, like when I
see war scenes on TV—the military, uniforms, Iraq. If I watch that, I’ll
have a flashback later. It feels like I’m living through the experience
all over again. The other night NBC was interviewing Iraqi generals. The
uniforms, the men in their bushy mustaches…I found myself looking at
them closely, to see if one of them was one of my guards. Then I told
myself, turn it off. Everyone keeps on talking about that show
Homeland—about a POW who comes home and people think he’s a terrorist.
I’ll never watch that.
The therapy has helped me cope, day
to day. I’m getting better; I don’t have as many nightmares. Part of my
problem was that I had a lot of guilt. I felt guilty for being here when
others died. I felt like I could have stopped all this from happening. A
day before the attack, I had a bad feeling in my stomach—I just felt
like something bad was going to happen. I felt like I should have said
something. Of course, I could not have stopped that convoy from moving
forward by telling a commander I had a bad feeling. I was the cook.
What’s he going to say? “Stop the convoy. The cook isn’t feeling it.
Let’s just stop right now.” I don’t think so.
Was it hard for you to admit
that you had PTSD?
Yes, the way it is
in the military, you’re supposed to suck it up, keep going. But it’s
important to get help. A couple weeks ago, a soldier shot a woman
here. He had done a couple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. We had another
shooting last year. It’s a real issue. I know the VA and the military
are shorthanded on psychiatrists.
The military didn’t want to
concede at first that you had PTSD, correct?
Yes, the doctors diagnosed it and
were treating me for it. But when I was getting medically dismissed, the
military didn’t want to acknowledge that I still had it. I needed them
to say it. It became very important to me. Eventually they did—but it
took a while.
What are you up to now?
I finished my associate’s degree in
culinary arts at El Paso Community College this past spring. Now I’ve
started studying for a bachelor’s degree in health sciences and
nutrition at the University of Texas. I’m not where I thought I’d be at
38, but I’m grateful to be here.
How are you doing physically?
I was shot in both legs, so there’s
quite a bit of damage: nerve damage, scar tissue. I have arthritis in my
back and spine. I go to physical therapy still. But I’m fortunate. A lot
of young men and women have prosthetic limbs. I can even dress up in
heels every now and then.
How do you feel about the troops
coming home from Iraq?
I’m very happy to see them coming
home, closing that chapter. I’m sure some of them will have to deal with
the mental aspects for some time to come. Some of us leave Iraq
physically, but not mentally.
You wrote a memoir,
I’m Still Standing,
a couple years ago, saying you wanted to set the record straight. What
was it that you wanted to clear up?
I had so many people tell me what
they thought happened to me over there, I decided to tell them myself. A
lot of people can accept that a man goes to war and does what is
necessary, but they have a hard time accepting that a woman can. They’ll
say, “But you didn’t see any action.” Well, I have bullet holes in my
legs. I fired my weapon. I’ve talked to other military females who have
said the same thing: people don’t believe they’re in the middle of the
action. Basically I did the book when I felt I could get a handle on
going back and reliving it all. When the book came out, there was some
backlash. I talked to
Jessica Lynch
about it and she said, “It doesn’t matter—we know what happened.”
Source:
TheDailyBeast
* *
* * *
 |
I'm Still Standing
From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen—My
Journey Home
By Shoshana Johnson with
M. L. Doyle
In
March of 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom was only
days old when world headlines were rocked by the
attack on a U.S. army convoy in Iraq. On March
23rd, during the early march to Baghdad,
Shoshana Johnson was wounded in an ambush of her
convoy in the city of an-Nasiriyah and taken as
a prisoner of war. Several soldiers were killed
and five others were taken prisoner. While
Jessica Lynch
became the face associated with the capture,
Shoshana was held for several more weeks. After
the headline-making ambush, capture, and rescue,
Shoshana returned to the U.S., receiving
numerous awards for her valor, including the
Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart Medal, and
Prisoner of War Medal. In
I’m Still Standing Shoshana writes for
the first time about her experience as a
prisoner of war, revealing emotions and
frustrations that are personal as well as
political. As a speaker, Shoshana’s warmth and
poise have earned her admirers all over the
world.
I’m Still Standing reveals the true
source of courage behind the story, the full
story she couldn’t share when she last appeared
on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live
|
Johnson gained
national attention as America's first black female
prisoner of war. She was in the 507th Maintenance
Company convoy ambushed on March 23, 2003, in
Nasiriyah, and captured with five other soldiers
including
Jessica Lynch. One might call Johnson's presence
in a firefight a compound accident. She was a cook
who had enlisted in 1998 hoping to earn money for
her education and perhaps meet a nice guy, and was a
cook with the 507th, which existed to maintain
Patriot missiles. But she was sent with the convoy,
and the bullets Johnson took in both ankles did not
ask for her military occupational specialty. Though
objectively treated well enough by her Iraqi
captors, she was wounded, female, and black: three
reasons for being afraid. Rescued three weeks later
in a daring raid, Johnson emerged with a Bronze
Star, a case of post-traumatic stress disorder, and
an unwanted celebrity status sufficiently resented
by the system that she left the army. Johnson
endured her captivity with courage and emerged with
honor. With the help of former army reservist Doyle,
she vividly, simply, and unpretentiously tells her
tale.—Publishers
Weekly
* *
* * *
The Real
World We Live In!
[Double
Standards for Shoshana Johnson]
By Christine Phillip
BET.com Staff Writer
Army Spec. Shoshana Johnson,
the African American woman who was held prisoner of war in the
U.S. invasion of Iraq, was looking forward to a quiet discharge
from the Army in a few days. Battle scarred and weary, she has
said not a word as her fellow POW comrade in arms
Jessica
Lynch
cashes in with book and movie deals and a celebrity status in the
media.
But it is the Army that is
forcing Johnson to break her peace. A few days ago, military brass
informed her that she would receive a 30 percent disability
benefit for her injuries.
Lynch, who is White, was discharged in
August and will receive an 80 percent disability
benefit. The difference amounts to
$600 or $700 a month in payments, and that is causing Johnson and
her family to speak out. They are so troubled by what they see as
a "double standard," that they have enlisted Rev. Jesse
Jackson to help make their case to the news media.
|
 |
Jackson, who plans to plead
Johnson's cause with the White House, the Pentagon and members of
Congress, says the payment smacks a double standard and racism. "Here's a case of two
women, same [unit], same war; everything about their service
commitment and their risk is equal. . . . Yet there's an enormous
contrast between how the military has handled these two
cases," Jackson told The Washington Post.
Johnson's father, Claude Johnson,
himself an Army veteran, says that while neither he nor
his family begrudge
Lynch her celebrity or disability
payments, he believes that his daughter should get her
due, and it is more than a 30 percent disability benefit.
For its part, the Army, in denying charges of double
standard, said Friday that claims are awarded to soldiers
according to their injuries.
Johnson, 30, the mother of a 3-year-old
daughter, was held captive for 22 days, when her unit
stumbled into an ambush in southern Iraq last March. Eleven soldiers were killed,
and six, including
Lynch and Johnson, were taken prisoners.
Johnson was shot in both legs and is still traumatized by her war
experience. In addition to walking with a limp, she suffers from
bouts of depression. |
So I ask that you forward this email on to all and inform others
of this latest racial attack. Forget about the destroying of
stamps, forget about Kobe, forget about Michael Jordan getting
fired and fight for the rights of this strong Black Woman!!! Email
--
Jennette McNear, Payroll Administrator
The Clark Construction Group, Inc.
301-272-8409 -- Phone
301-272-8413 -- Fax
jennette.mcnear@clarkconstruction.com
* *
* * *
Army
Specialist Shoshana Johnson, 30,
El Paso, Texas
Her name means “rose” in Hebrew, the inspiration of an aunt
who once worked as a nurse in Brooklyn. But her family is
Panamanian-American, and although she grew up in an Army family,
she never expected to find herself on the front lines. She is
fun-loving, her younger sister Nikki says: outgoing, independent
and trustworthy—definitely not the kind of person who “stays
in front of the TV forever and a day.”
|
Shoshana’s dream was to
be a chef, but culinary school costs money, and Army cook was
close enough. And it seemed safe enough, too. But early on
the morning of March 23, her father, Claude, was flipping
through the channels looking for a cartoon show for
Johnson’s 2-year-old daughter, Janelle. He happened to
catch a newscast on the Spanish-language network Telemundo.
“They said five Americans had been captured in Iraq,”
he says. “I caught ‘one African-American female, 30
years old, from the 507th.’ Her name was Shana. I said,
‘It’s got to be her’.”
It
was. Now her large extended family, including more than
a dozen cousins, are watching and waiting. Inspired by the relatives of
Elizabeth Smart, whose savvy handling of the press helped lead to
the return of a 15-year-old kidnapped Utah girl, Shoshana’s
relations have appeared all over television and in the
newspapers, publicly praying for her release |
 |
“I realized media attention is
the thing that brought that girl home,” says Shoshana’s aunt
Margaret Thorne-Henderson, who has appeared on the “Today”
show. “We just want her to be treated humanely,” Nikki told
NEWSWEEK, “and to return home swiftly and safely.”
*
* * * *
KFOXTV.com
"We
Were A Hot Potato" - Spc. Shoshana Johnson
By David Bennallack - KFOX News Director
"We got turned around and then got lost
and we rolled into Nasiriyah before it was secure and when we
rolled in there was an ambush waiting for us," that's the
beginning of a story of courage and survival for El Paso native
Shoshana Johnson.
When part of the 507th Maintenance Company
rolled into Nasiriyah, Iraq just before dawn on March 23rd, the
unit was met with gunfire from every side. 19 507th soldiers were
facing an all-out assault, and had little to fight back with. Some
of the Ft. Bliss soldiers died where they fell. Shoshana Johnson
dove under her truck and was shot - wounded in both ankles,
perhaps by the same bullet. Near Johnson were Sgt. James Riley,
Specialist Edgar Hernandez, and Specialist Joseph Hudson.
For 15 minutes the battle raged. Then "All
our weapons jammed, failed, and people were coming out of the
houses with weapons," said Johnson. "And then we just got overwhelmed."
Sgt. James Riley ordered the surrender. The Ft.
Bliss Five threw down the weapons and Iraqis pounded on them,
kicking and hitting them with sticks. Not Johnson. They opened her chemical weapons
suit "and noticed I was a female," she said. Then they
treated her "very well. I don't know why." Next stop a Baghdad prison. Where the
videotape we all saw on TV was apparently made. Johnson
said her interrogators asked her about the locations of
American divisions.
|
 |
"When they finally got that I was
only a cook, they started asking me where the food came
from, if it was coming from Kuwait," she said,
smiling.
Iraqi doctors performed surgery three
times on her wounded ankles. "More than once, a
doctor said that they wanted to take good care of me to
show that the Iraqi people had humanity," Johnson
said.
Asked what she thought of that now, she says "I
appreciate the care that I was given. But I also know that
there was a reason behind it. They didn't give me care
just for the humanity of it." As
the coalition forces moved closer to Baghdad, the
prisoners were moved. |
A half dozen times in the last
week. Each time there were new guards. "We were a hot
potato," says Johnson "It was getting to the point where
I believed they were going to kill us." And when the U.S. Marines suddenly knocked down
the door, there was another moment of concern. "At first they
didn't realize I was an American," said Johnson. They quickly
realized their mistake and gave her a jumpsuit from one of their
light armored vehicles' crewmen, but she held on to her prison
pajamas in a brown plastic bag.
"I broke down. I was like, Oh my God, I'm
home," said Johnson. And now Johnson says she has one goal, to be at
her own home in El Paso by May 20th - her daughter Janelle's 3rd
birthday.
Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press
* * *
* *
Plans
For Official Shoshana Johnson Welcome Home Celebration
KFOXTV.com
|
Friends
And Family Begin To Make Initial Plans For Her Return
"It just worked out beautifully. So
we just thought there was divine intervention there,"
says Claude Johnson. He attributes Shoshana's return to a
strong sense of hope and a lot of faith and prayer. For
him the joy of seeing TV and back in S.S. hands is beyond
what he can describe.
"I don't know if there are any
words in any dictionary any encyclopedia that can describe
the feeling when you see her and you realize...oh
yeah..it's real. She's alive...she's well," says
Johnson. Well enough to walk on to a military plane,
despite several gun shot injuries to her ankles. But up until Sunday's rescue, Johnson says
there was a period of uncertainty for his family.
Mom receives the good
news-- Shana Found! |
 |
"Oh . . . the period . . . that period from the time
we found out that she was a prisoner of war up until the time she
came back to us . . . or back in the arms of the u.s. forces, it was
extremely stressful," says Johnson. He says because there was no news about her, so
many concerns were going through his head.
"Where is she? What conditions is she
living under? What are they doing to her? And that didn't lend for
good sleeping at all. I would wake up in the middle of the night
with all these thoughts going through my mind," says Johnson. But those restless nights ended after 3 weeks
when Johnson saw his daughter in the company of U.S. marines.
"I was able to get some good sleep, after
Sunday. Finally I know that she's safe, she's okay and that she's
coming home." Although there's no official word on when she
will come home, Johnson says it was wonderful to hear her voice on
Sunday when they got the first phone call from her.
"It was great hearing from her. She got to
speak to her daughter...and i think that was just fantastic . . .
she
started crying and then she ended up laughing, you know because
she got to speak to everybody." Now that she's safe, Johnson says he is just
waiting for the day when Shoshana does make it back.
For her official Welcome Home Celebration there
is a meeting planned this Thursday, April 17th at 5:30 p.m. inside
the El Paso Times Community Room.
Copyright 2003
* * *
* *
* * * * *
 |
Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
* * * * *
|
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
 |
*
* * * *
 |
Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
|
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
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update 26
December 2011
|
