Re: Johnson Takes Stage by Stoem

Date: February 05, 2004

"This Former POW Takes the Stage by Storm
Feb 5, 2004

Aided by a cane, Shoshana Johnson stepped haltingly onto the stage in a packed room at Nassau Community College. Beyond a slight limp and a blotch of skin discoloration above her right ankle, there was little trace of her injuries.

Delivering a Black History Month presentation yesterday - her very first public speaking engagement - Johnson told her story of captivity in Iraq. She downplayed the hero label pinned on her, instead lauding her rescuers and crediting her immigrant family and the luminaries of black history with giving her the will to survive.

"When people put that label on me, I reject it wholeheartedly," said Johnson, 30, who the Pentagon has said was America's first black female prisoner of war. "The real heroes are the young men who rescued me, the soldiers who paid the ultimate price... "

Johnson,a cook in the 507th Maintenance Company, was in a unit that was ambushed March 23 after a convoy of vehicles took a wrong turn in the city of Nasariyah. Nine members of the 507th were killed. Five, including Johnson and Pfc. Jessica Lynch, were captured and later rescued. Johnson was held in prisons in and around Baghdad until their liberation by Marines.

Decorated with the U.S. Army Service Ribbon, the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart, Johnson retired from the Army on disability with an honorable discharge in December.

"Seems odd to me that I am now part of black history," said Johnson, a native of Panama and a second-generation soldier who lives in El Paso, Texas. "I dreamed of being the first black woman on the moon, of being the first black female president, but the first black female prisoner of war, never."

Disabled by gunshots to both ankles during the ambush, she was treated better by her captors than other prisoners, Johnson said.

Of her 22 days in captivity, she said, "I listened to the bombs, listened for the Marines to come kicking down the doors and tell me I'm going home to my daughter, Janelle, and my family."

Asked later if she felt deceived that no weapons of mass destruction have been found, she fired back: "... All I know is that I was a soldier in the U.S. Army and my commander in chief gave an order. If I questioned every order, I wouldn't get to do my job."

When difficulties arise, Johnson said, she looks to those who came before her for inspiration to endure.

"I'm a product of my ancestors, my proud aunts and my courageous father, that old soldier," she said, referring to Claude Johnson, an Army veteran of the 1991 Gulf War. "I hope I can pass some of that on to you."

©2004 Sun-Sentinel Co."