FReeper Canteen ~ Hall of Heroes: Lori Piestewa ~ 22 February 2021

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[Kathy in Alaska]

 

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---

~ Hall of Heroes ~
Lori Piestewa

Info from here.

           

SPC Lori Ann Piestewa (December 14, 1979 – March 23, 2003) was a U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps soldier killed during the same Iraqi Army attack in which fellow soldiers Shoshana Johnson and Jessica Lynch sustained injuries. A member of the Hopi tribe, Piestewa was the first woman in the U.S. armed forces killed in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and is the first Native American woman to die in combat while serving with the U.S. military in world history.

Piestewa was born in Tuba City, Arizona, to Terry Piestewa and Priscilla "Percy" Baca. Her father is a full-blooded Hopi Native American, and her mother is a Mexican-American.  The couple first met in 1964, and married in November 1968.

The Piestewa family had a long military tradition; her paternal grandfather served in the U.S. Army in the European Theatre of World War II, and her father Terry Piestewa was drafted in the U.S. Army in September 1965, and served one tour of duty in the Vietnam War before he returned home in March 1967.

The Piestewa family resided in a trailer park in Tuba City, a town located on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Coconino County.[9] As a child, she was given the Hopi name Köcha-Hon-Mana (also spelled Qotsa-hon-mana, meaning White Bear Girl).  Her surname, Piestewa, is derived from a Hopi language root meaning "water pooled on the desert by a hard rain"; thus, Piestewa translates loosely as "the people who live by the water."

Piestewa was a member of the army's 507th Army Maintenance Company, a support unit of clerks, cooks, and repair personnel. Her company was traveling in a convoy through the desert and was meant to bypass Nasiriyah, in southern Iraq, during the opening days of the war; but the convoy became lost and ran into an ambush in Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003.

As Piestewa came under what an Army investigation described as "a torrent of fire," she drove at a high speed, successfully evading the enemy fire until an RPG hit the front-left wheel-well of her Humvee. The force of the explosion sent her vehicle into the rear of a disabled tractor-trailer. Three other soldiers in the Humvee died in the crash. Lynch attempted to fire her M16, but it jammed. Piestewa, Johnson and Lynch all survived but were wounded. They were taken prisoner along with four others, with Piestewa dying soon after of her wounds. A video of some of the American prisoners of war, including Piestewa (filmed shortly before she died in an Iraqi hospital), was later shown around the world on Al Jazeera television. According to Jessica Lynch's book—I'm a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story—Piestewa was wounded in the head, and it was impossible to perform delicate neurosurgery in an Iraqi civilian hospital in wartime conditions (such as intermittent electric power). In a U.S. military hospital with reliable power and neurosurgeons available around the clock, she might have survived.

The families of soldiers in the 507th heard almost right away of the ambush and fatalities in the unit. The Piestewa family saw people in Lori's unit being interviewed by Iraqi TV, and for more than a week families of the two women waited for news. All around Tuba City signs were hung out telling people: "Put your porch light on, show Lori the way home." They used white stone to spell her name on a 200-ft mesa just outside the town

 

Piestewa was awarded the Purple Heart and Prisoner of War Medal. The army posthumously promoted her from Private First Class to Specialist.

Jessica Lynch has repeatedly said that Piestewa is the true hero of the ambush and named her daughter Dakota Ann in honor of her fallen comrade. In addition, many entities have honored her memory with memorials. Arizona's state government renamed Squaw Peak in the Phoenix Mountains near Phoenix as Piestewa Peak and this was codified by the US Board on Geographic Names on April 10, 2008; the freeway that passes near this mountain was also re-named in her honor. In addition, Senator Tom Daschle honored her, as did Indian Nations across America. Since her death, the Grand Canyon Games organizers have held an annual Lori Piestewa National Native American Games, which brings participants from across the country. A plaque bearing her name is also located at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and Fort Bliss, Texas. She has also been memorialized with a plaque and ceremony at Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial in La Jolla, California.

Her death led to a rare joint prayer gathering between members of the Hopi and Navajo tribes, which have had a centuries-old rivalry.

In May 2005, Lori's parents and children had a brand-new home built by Ty Pennington and his crew on ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition accompanied by Jessica Lynch. They also built a new veterans' center on the Navajo reservation.

Thanks, Beachn4Fun, for the reminder about this hero!

Please remember the Canteen is here to honor, support and entertain our troops and their families.  This is a politics-free zone!  Thanks for helping us in our mission! 

[radu]

Greetings to all at the Canteen!

To all our military men and women, past and present,

[SkyDancer]

~ Good Evening ~

~ Out Of The Freezer And Home!! ~

~ Good Evening ~

~ Welcome To My World ~

I’m Down There Somewhere

[PROCON]

Thanks for honoring and remembering tonight’s Hero, Kathy!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Hello Veterans, wherever you are!!

[radu]

Howdy, Kathy.

I remember when this happened, being glued to the news at the time.

It’s nice to see this valiant young woman received recognition she deserved.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, radu...are you starting to warm up? Waiting for helpful rain?

It snowed here for several hours...all the way to work and back. Almost hit a car at the stop light as I slid and slid and slid. Thankfully I was already going slow for the turn, but it was close.

[radu]

Howdy, PRO.

How’s your weekend been? Has your warm-up begun?

[Kathy in Alaska]

Welcome home, Janey...((HUGS))...how long and where did you get stuck?

I mailed a box to Tennessee on the 11th and it still hasn’t gotten there. Tracking just says it will be late.

[radu]

Hey there, Kathy.

Yes, it’s much warmer now though it was quite windy today. The rain is on its way, just moving into TN now.

I saw that it’s snowing up your way. Still coming down pretty hard at the airport now. It was snowing so hard earlier we could barely see the Dreamlifter as it took off for Japan.

EEK on your near collision! That sort of thing is NOT fun. At least you don’t have to go out any more for a while.

[SkyDancer]

Hai Kathy! (((HUGS))) I was stuck for a bit over a week; some corporate guys were escaping (LOL) and asked if I wanted to go along to Vegas, then from there caught a jump home. Fun trip, love those bizjets.

[left that other site]

Hi Everybody!

(((HUGS)))

[The Mayor]

Freep mail me to be on or off the Daily Bread ping list

February 22

Like Jesus

Bible in a Year:

• Numbers 4–6
• Mark 4:1–20

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Romans 8:29 As a boy, theologian Bruce Ware was frustrated that 1 Peter 2:21–23 calls us to be like Jesus. Ware wrote of his youthful exasperation in his book The Man Christ Jesus. “Not fair, I determined. Especially when the passage says to follow in the steps of one ‘who did no sin.’ This was totally outlandish . . . . I just couldn’t see how God could really mean for us to take it seriously.”

I understand why Ware would find such a biblical challenge so daunting! An old chorus says, “To be like Jesus, to be like Jesus. My desire, to be like Him.” But as Ware rightly noted, we are incapable of doing that. Left to ourselves, we could never become like Jesus.

However, we’re not left to ourselves. The Holy Spirit has been given to the child of God, in part so that Christ can be formed in us (Galatians 4:19). So it should come as no surprise that in Paul’s great chapter on the Spirit we read, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). God will see His work completed in us. And He does it through the Spirit of Jesus living in us.

As we yield to the Spirit’s work in us, we truly become more like Jesus. How comforting to know that’s God’s great desire for us!

Reflect & Pray

What attribute of the fruit of the Spirit would you like to live out to a greater degree? (see Galatians 5:22–23). What will help you do so?

Father, I long to be more like Your Son but so often fall short in word, thought, or deed. Forgive me, and help me to yield to the work of Your Spirit so that Jesus might be formed in me.

For further study, read Free in the Spirit at DiscoverySeries.org/Q0307.

[Kathy in Alaska]

~ Hall of Heroes: Lori Piestewa ~

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[PROCON]

Hiya radu, we are in a warming trend, much of the snow has melted.

Lazy weekend, didn't do much.

How about your weather? Did your 1/2" of snow melt yet? 😆

[Biggirl]

Hi Kathy of Alaska!

[Kathy in Alaska]

You get into quite the adventures flying all over the place. Enjoy your time home.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, Pro...she was a hero. And she gave her life to help us be free.

[radu]

It sounds like a lot of us are warming back up a little. Feels GOOD, doesn’t it?

Hey, 4 inches of snow might not sound like much but it’s a lot for us. LOL And it’s gone. Sunshine and 60 degrees took care of it. Now rain is moving through overnight.

I expected a boring weekend but yesterday turned out great. Got to head up to the military museum for a couple of hours to check out some of the new stuff. Can’t wait til we re-open this year and spend every Saturday there.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Just a few flakes for the last hour or so, and some sun tomorrow before THE snow. Hope they come tomorrow to take some away.