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Old 04-05-2003, 07:54 AM
sfc_darrel sfc_darrel is offline
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Default First American woman soldier killed

The eight soldiers identified Saturday were with Pfc. Jessica Lynch when their convoy was ambushed near Nasiriyah on March 23. Seven were members of Lynch's unit, the 507th Maintenance Company. Two other members of the unit had been listed as killed in action, and five are listed as prisoners of war.

Those five, who appeared on Iraqi television being questioned by their captors, were not among the bodies found during Lynch's rescue.

The dead included the first American woman soldier killed in the Iraq war, Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, 23, of Tuba City, Ariz. Piestewa, a Hopi who was one of the few American Indian women in the military, was the mother of a 4-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl.
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Old 04-05-2003, 08:20 AM
sfc_darrel sfc_darrel is offline
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Death of Tuba City soldier-mom rocks Hopi tribe

Carlos Miller and Mark Shaffer
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 4, 2003 11:20 PM


U.S. Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa, the Tuba City soldier who had gone missing in Iraq after enemy soldiers ambushed her unit last month, is dead, the Department of Defense said late Friday night. "This tragedy has rocked the very foundation of the Hopi reservation," Wayne Taylor Jr., chairman of the Hopi tribe said in a statement shortly after midnight.

Piestewa, 23, an enrolled member of the Hopi tribe, leaves behind two children. Her family declined comment late Friday night.

The seven other soldiers in her unit that had been listed as missing were also killed in action, the Department of Defense said.

Taylor said many Hopis have been continually praying for Piestwa's safe return since March 23, the day she was listed as missing in action.
"We will get through this and we will continue to pray that all of our soldiers, not just Hopi, are safely returned home to their families," Taylor said in the statement.

He noted in the statement that of the 56 Hopi men and women serving in the United States armed forces, all but eight are in the Persian Gulf region.

The eight bodies were found in the same hospital from which Pfc. Jessica Lynch was rescued earlier this week. A ninth body has yet to be identified.

The soldiers, part of the 507th Maintenance Company of Fort Bliss, Texas, an Army mechanics group, were attempting to catch up to a huge convoy of tanks and troops moving to Baghad on March 23.

They had fallen behind because they had to repair several stalled vehicles. They were ambushed in the town of An Nasiriya.

Two members of that unit were pronounced dead shortly after the attack, five were taken as prisoners of war and Piestewa and seven others had been listed as missing in action.

Piestewa had enlisted in the Army shortly after her graduation from Tuba City High School five years ago, where she had been a leader of the school's junior ROTC program. She also had been a member of the school's softball team.

Piestewa, who was divorced, is survived by a 4-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.

Lori's father fought in Vietnam and her grandfather was a World War II veteran.

The youngest of four children, she joined the Army about 2 1/2 years ago and did supply work. The family received an e-mail from Lori saying she was about to enter Iraq and it "felt good that she was not sitting around and waiting any more."

The 507th provides repairs and support for the 5th Battalion, 52nd Air Defense

Artillery Regiment, which is comprised of five Patriot missile batteries. In the Middle East, the unit is attached to 3rd Infantry Division.

Piestewa's family, who had been praying that she would turn up alive like rescued Pfc. Jessica Lynch, had no comment late Friday and had apparently learned of her death from reporters.
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