Ex-POW to speak at YWCA leadership event
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Ex-POW Shoshana Johnson has made many trips to Arizona, most tinged with sorrow over the death of a sister soldier who didn’t survive.
Now she’s coming to Tucson to inspire women who want to be leaders.
Johnson, a former Army cook shot in an ambush and held captive for three weeks early in the Iraq War, is a featured speaker at the YWCA’s annual Women’s Leadership Conference on Friday.
“I think women in the military have a unique view of leadership,” said Janet Marcotte, the Y’s executive director. “And Shoshana certainly has been challenged in unique ways.”
Johnson, America’s first black female POW, was captured in the same attack that killed an Arizona hero, Spc. Lori Piestewa of Tuba City. Piestewa, a Hopi Tribe member, was the first American Indian woman killed in action overseas.
Former soldier Jessica Lynch and four others also were captured when their convoy took a wrong turn in March 2003 near the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. Eleven troops died in the ambush.
Piestewa’s parents have befriended all the POWs and invite them to annual memorial services in their daughter’s honor, Johnson said in a telephone interview from her home in El Paso.
“The Piestewas are an amazing family,” she said. “They’ve really helped me heal.
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Shoshana Johnson. Photo by Toni Marie.