Re: Piestewa Remains Most Lauded

Date: March 22, 2004

"Among Arizona's war dead, Piestewa remains most lauded

MICHELLE RUSHLO
Associated Press

PHOENIX - In the year since U.S. troops pushed through the Iraq desert half a world away, more than a dozen people from Arizona have died there.

Yet, one soldier - a single mother captured in photos with a wide smile and dark eyes - seems to have captivated people's attention, their curiosity.

Army Spc. Lori Piestewa died after her convoy took a wrong turn and was ambushed near Nasiriyah last March. Some of the members of 507th Maintenance Company, including her best friend Jessica Lynch, were taken prisoner; others died.

Piestewa, a member of the Hopi Tribe who lived in a small town on the Navajo Reservation, was the first woman killed in the Iraq war and is believed to be the first American Indian woman killed in combat while fighting for the U.S. military.

"Lori Piestewa will go down in history. We have a tendency in this country to mark the first of everything," said Jeanine L'Ecuyer, spokeswoman for Gov. Janet Napolitano. "Even though this is a tragedy, it will be a mark in the history books, a tragic mark for her family."

Since her death, Piestewa was honored by military and civilian officials and a variety of American Indian communities.

A large desert mountain in the Phoenix area known for generations as Squaw Peak was renamed Piestewa Peak at Napolitano's urging shortly after her death; a nearby freeway that had shared the peak's name followed suit. The decision was controversial, but the name stuck.

Piestewa's parents, Terry and Percy Piestewa of Tuba City, were visited by First Lady Laura Bush; they met the president.

Piestewa, who had two young children, and other Indian veterans will be honored at the opening ceremony of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington in September.

And Lynch, perhaps the best known soldier to have served in the war so far, has called Piestewa her best friend. "It was an honor to have served with her," Lynch has said of her roommate.

Tribal officials say that Piestewa's death resonated with all tribes because of the interconnectedness among the communities and because of the way it highlighted the service that Indians have done in the U.S. military.

"In our culture, in the Indian culture, we're all related. All the tribes are related, so when something happens like this, we all feel it," said Tex Hall, the president of the National Congress of American Indians and the chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota.

"All Indian country feels for her because she's our sister."

Her decision to join the military, he said, follows a long history of warrior culture in Indian communities. While the warrior was traditionally a male one, Piestewa shared a warrior spirit common in Indian culture, Hall said.

Piestewa was the daughter of a Vietnam veteran and the granddaughter of a World War II veteran.

Her parents declined requests this month to be interviewed by The Associated Press.

Retired Gen. Tom Browning, a former Vietnam POW who now is executive director of Greater Phoenix Leadership, said Piestewa's death has captured attention because it was a first.

But the dramatic increase in women on active duty and in the reserves makes it inevitable that others will follow.

"Statistical averages will tell you to expect that," he said. "It doesn't matter whether you like it or not."

© 2004 AP Wire and wire service sources"