Hall of Heroes: Lori Piestewa ~ 24 June 2024

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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 K cha-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! 

[left that other site]

Hi Everybody!

(((HUGS)))

[Jet Jaguar]

HOWDY!!!!! (((Hugz)))

[left that other site]

Trying to beat the heat.

Heat is no fun without palm trees.

[radu]

Greetings to all at the Canteen!

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

THANK YOU
for your service!

[PROCON]

Hi Kathy, thanks for honoring tonight's Hero!

Son's over for dinner, see ya later!

[Jet Jaguar]

I concur.

[Beowulf9]

Regarding your ‘dream’. If you get a chance come to Flagstaff Arizona and you can do a few miles on Route 66 :)

[Kathy in Alaska]

~ Hall of Heroes: Lori Piestewa ~ 24 June 2024 ~

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[Kathy in Alaska]

Sorry...working on getting the title fixed...I’m under the weather, but work goes on.

[Chewbarkah]

The picture of Lori Ann smiling breaks my heart. She was obviously a wonderful person, giving her all for our country.

[MoochPooch]

Evening, Kathy!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, ML...((HUGS))...hope you and Blue and Tippy are enjoying your weekend.

The thermometer in the shade on my deck says 90!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, JJ...((HUGS))...enjoy your retirement. Eventually the “right” job will come along.

It’s 90 on my deck. Much too hot. Thankfully my big box fan does a great job.

[T.B. Yoits]

...honoring tonight's hero...

Heroine

[ansel12]

This is not the best one to bring up, that description is similar to the falsehoods that were poured all over that event, including the real heroes who are skipped over because of the females who were just there.

[vetvetdoug]

Read the book, Escape In Iraq by Thomas Hamill and Paul T. Brown about one of the civilian contractors that were also in the ambush that saw Spc. Piestewa get killed. Don't think for one minute that the ME captors will treat our men and women with the same respect as do we. The mistreatment of Iraq soldiers cannot compare to the mistreatment that they doled out to US servicemen and women.

[radu]

Oh no. I hoped you’d be feeling better today. :-(

[ansel12]

The real hero of the ambush was taken alive and executed, his Silver Star was posthumous, but he put up a fight which for a long time was described as Jessica Lynch’s heroism.

“What upset me was they admitted it wasn’t Jessica Lynch, but they never bothered to find out who that soldier was,” Arlene Walters told reporters late Thursday.

“Empty gun magazines were found near where Walters was captured, suggesting he fired until ammunition ran out. Before his capture, he was shot in the leg and stabbed three times in the abdomen with a bayonet, Strong said, citing the report.”

“It was four years later when the military and Lynch acknowledged before Congress that Sgt. Walters should have been the focus of all the attention.”

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, radu...it’s HOT. Twice momma of 4 and momma of 7 the younger have been here. No big ducks til just a bit ago. And I think I have heard thunder a couple times. And the weather on my phone shows a really cool lightning bolt...that will be the day. LOL!

Hope your area gets a shower or two,even if just short ones. The poor corn.