Jolie Rouge
03-31-2003, 09:47 PM
Of 250,000 troops, some would inevitably be lost. But nothing can prepare a family for the knock on the door. NEWSWEEK honors America’s bravest
www.msnbc.com/news/892873.asp
April 7 issue — The youngest were fresh out of high school. The oldest were veterans of other battles who signed up for one more chance to serve their country. By last weekend, 53 American soldiers were identified as captured, killed or missing in Iraq. At least seven journalists were also reported missing or dead. Amid the thunder of war, the families tended to remember the little things: how a young father sang in the choir, how a daughter dreamed of a posting in Hawaii. For some, there may still be a happy ending; for others, only tears.
CAPTURED
[b]Captive
[b]Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson,
30, El Paso, Texas
Her name means “rose” in Hebrew, the inspiration of an aunt who once worked as a nurse in Brooklyn. But her family is Panamanian-American, and although she grew up in an Army family, she never expected to find herself on the front lines. She is fun-loving, her younger sister Nikki says: outgoing, independent and trustworthy—definitely not the kind of person who “stays in front of the TV forever and a day.” Shoshana’s dream was to be a chef, but culinary school costs money, and Army cook was close enough. And it seemed safe enough, too.
But early on the morning of March 23, her father, Claude, was flipping through the channels looking for a cartoon show for Johnson’s 2-year-old daughter, Janelle. He happened to catch a newscast on the Spanish-language network Telemundo. “They said five Americans had been captured in Iraq,” he says. “I caught ‘one African-American female, 30 years old, from the 507th.’ Her name was Shana. I said, ‘It’s got to be her’.”
It was. Now her large extended family, including more than a dozen cousins, are watching and waiting. Inspired by the relatives of Elizabeth Smart, whose savvy handling of the press helped lead to the return of a 15-year-old kidnapped Utah girl, Shoshana’s relations have appeared all over television and in the newspapers, publicly praying for her release. “I realized media attention is the thing that brought that girl home,” says Shoshana’s aunt Margaret Thorne-Henderson, who has appeared on the “Today” show. “We just want her to be treated humanely,” Nikki told NEWSWEEK, “and to return home swiftly and safely.”
Chief Warrant Officer II David S. Williams, U.S. Army
30, Orlando, Fla.
As soon as he was old enough to dream, Williams dreamed of flying. He joined the Army after high school and headed straight for flight training. After his Apache helicopter went down last week, he appeared on Iraqi TV. For Williams’s father, a former Army medic, that was a relief of sorts: “Up until that point he was listed as MIA, and you always think the worst.”
Specialist Edgar Adan Hernandez, U.S. Army
21, Alton, Texas
“He’s got a noble character,” his mother, Maria de la Luz Hernandez, says in Spanish, then, inadvertently slipping into the past tense: “He was a good brother, a good son, respectful to the whole world.” Hernandez, though, may well be alive; he was also shown on Iraqi TV.
Chief Warrant Officer II Ronald D. Young Jr., U.S. Army
26, Lithia Springs, Ga.
Friends and relatives say the divorced father of one has always been upbeat and self-confident. He appeared—to them at least—more angry than scared in the brief video clips shown on Iraqi TV. “I believe the Lord will deliver him back to us,” says his father, a Vietnam vet.
Sgt. James Riley, U.S. Army
31, Pennsauken, N.J.
Riley loved his work as an Army machinist, according to his father, Athol. “He wasn’t at all nervous about going over there,” his father says. “He just considered it his job.” Still, Athol Riley says he’s very worried, especially because his son “didn’t have his glasses when he was shown on TV.”
Pfc. Patrick Miller, U.S. Army
23, Park City, Kans.
After working as a welder, Miller enlisted last summer to help pay off student loans and was stationed at Fort Bliss. When he was deployed in December, his wife, Jessa, and children, Tyler, 4, and Makenzie, now 7 months, moved back to Kansas. Now the trees in his neighborhood are covered in yellow ribbons.
Specialist Joseph Hudson, U.S. Army
23, Alamogordo, N.M.
Not long after a March 23 ambush, Hudson’s mother was watch-ing a foreign newscast and saw footage of her son. “He looked so scared,” she says. “I just pray to my God they take care of him.”
MISSING
Specialist James Kiehl, U.S. Army
22, Comfort, Texas
A computer technician with the 507th Maintenance Company, Kiehl was among the missing in the convoy ambush near An Nasiriya. His father, Randy, has been monitoring war news on two televisions, three phone lines and a computer, and keeping up “a strong front and a strong face” for the media—”just in case they show James any news footage” from back home.
Pfc. Tamario Burkett, U.S. Marine Corps
21, Buffalo, N.Y.
He wrote home often, and his letters were filled with advice and instructions for his five younger siblings: to focus on schoolwork and (for 15-year-old Katrina) to stay away from boys. And he also confided his own fears: would God forgive him if he killed someone in combat?
Pfc. Jessica Lynch, U.S. Army
19, Palestine, W.Va.
Hawaii was supposed to be Lynch’s next posting, a dream come true for a girl from a town so small she never saw a shopping mall until she was 17. But as war loomed her orders changed, and she found herself in the Middle East—where, on March 23, she disappeared near An Nasiriya.
[b]Pvt. Brandon Sloan, U.S. Army
19, Bedford Heights, Ohio
Rementa Muldrow-Pippen says her grandson “loves comedy, loves to joke, loves the Temptations, loves football and loves to eat.” His father, Tandy, told a reporter he last talked to his son by telephone just three weeks before he was deployed from Fort Bliss. Then came the news that Sloan’s unit was ambushed on the road to Baghdad.
Pfc. Lori Piestewa, U.S. Army
23, Tuba City, Ariz.
Piestewa grew up in a military family: her grandfather fought in World War II and her father served in Vietnam. A divorced mother of two, she joined the Army in 2000. “She’s a tough kid, and she keeps her head about her,” her brother Wayland told a reporter after her unit ran into an ambush. “Our hope is that she’s... staying alive and staying smart.”
Pvt. Nolen Ryan Hutchings, U.S. Marine Corps
20, Boiling Springs, S.C.
When 7-year-old Edward Nolen was adopted by his stepfather, Larry Hutchings, he took the opportunity to rename himself in honor of his hero, pitcher Nolan Ryan. On March 23 he disappeared while his unit was trying to secure a bridge outside An Nasiriya. “They’ll probably find him somewhere behind a sand dune,” Larry says hopefully.
Master Sgt. Robert J. Dowdy, U.S. Army
38, Cleveland, Ohio
Dowdy has a wife and a teenage daughter in Louisiana.
Sgt. Donald R. Walters, U.S. Army
33, Kansas City, Mo.
The first gulf war left Walters shaken—literally. Back home, “he would sit and shake,” says his father, Norman, because of the “terrible things he saw.” He finally left the Army two years ago. After drifting through various jobs, divorcing and remarrying, the father of three re-enlisted last summer. His unit ran into an ambush near An Nasiriya.
Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata, U.S. Army
35, Pecos, Texas
Mata grew up in a desert town just 200 miles from Fort Bliss, where his 507th Maintenance Company is based.
Cpl. Kemaphoom A. Chanawongse, U.S. Marine Corps
22, Waterford, Conn.
He was born in Thailand, came to America at the age of 8 and joined the Marines despite the fears of his mother, Tan Patchem. “He loved being a Marine,” she says, but “he’s my baby.” Though Chanawongse has been missing since March 23, his mother is confident she will see him again. “Maybe tomorrow he will show up,” she says.
Cpl. Patrick R. Nixon, U.S. Marine Corps
21, Gallatin, Tenn.
Debra and David Nixon still use the present tense when talking about their son, who has been missing since a battle last week in southern Iraq. Nixon’s 7-year-old niece says she won’t go back to her favorite pizza parlor “until her Uncle Pat takes her,” his mother says.
Pvt. Ruben Estrella-Soto, U.S. Army
18, El Paso, Texas
His father opposed his enlisting, but he wanted to study engineering, and the military seemed like a good way to get his education paid for. He disappeared in the ambush on March 23, along with his friend Edgar Hernandez, who later turned up on Iraqi TV. But Estrella-Soto’s fate was unknown. “Not knowing anything is hard,” Ruben Estrella Sr. told reporters.
Lance Cpl. Donald John Cline Jr., U.S. Marine Corps
21, Reno, Nev.
“I just look at my kids and I have to have hope,” says his wife, Tina, who married Cline the day after he finished boot camp. Last week their 2-year-old son Dakota received in the mail a hand-carved pickup truck his father had made. His wife is sure he’s alive. “I feel it so deeply in my heart,” she says. “He has too many people that love him.”
Pvt. Jonathan Gifford, U.S. Marine Corps
30, Macon, Ill.
For nearly a decade Gifford had struggled with whether to join the military, his family says. Last year he joined the Marines.
Lance Cpl. Thomas A. Blair, U.S. Marine Corps
24, Broken Arrow, Okla.
Blair joined the Marines in 1997 after graduating from Broken Arrow High School, where he led the percussion section of the school band.
www.msnbc.com/news/892873.asp
April 7 issue — The youngest were fresh out of high school. The oldest were veterans of other battles who signed up for one more chance to serve their country. By last weekend, 53 American soldiers were identified as captured, killed or missing in Iraq. At least seven journalists were also reported missing or dead. Amid the thunder of war, the families tended to remember the little things: how a young father sang in the choir, how a daughter dreamed of a posting in Hawaii. For some, there may still be a happy ending; for others, only tears.
CAPTURED
[b]Captive
[b]Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson,
30, El Paso, Texas
Her name means “rose” in Hebrew, the inspiration of an aunt who once worked as a nurse in Brooklyn. But her family is Panamanian-American, and although she grew up in an Army family, she never expected to find herself on the front lines. She is fun-loving, her younger sister Nikki says: outgoing, independent and trustworthy—definitely not the kind of person who “stays in front of the TV forever and a day.” Shoshana’s dream was to be a chef, but culinary school costs money, and Army cook was close enough. And it seemed safe enough, too.
But early on the morning of March 23, her father, Claude, was flipping through the channels looking for a cartoon show for Johnson’s 2-year-old daughter, Janelle. He happened to catch a newscast on the Spanish-language network Telemundo. “They said five Americans had been captured in Iraq,” he says. “I caught ‘one African-American female, 30 years old, from the 507th.’ Her name was Shana. I said, ‘It’s got to be her’.”
It was. Now her large extended family, including more than a dozen cousins, are watching and waiting. Inspired by the relatives of Elizabeth Smart, whose savvy handling of the press helped lead to the return of a 15-year-old kidnapped Utah girl, Shoshana’s relations have appeared all over television and in the newspapers, publicly praying for her release. “I realized media attention is the thing that brought that girl home,” says Shoshana’s aunt Margaret Thorne-Henderson, who has appeared on the “Today” show. “We just want her to be treated humanely,” Nikki told NEWSWEEK, “and to return home swiftly and safely.”
Chief Warrant Officer II David S. Williams, U.S. Army
30, Orlando, Fla.
As soon as he was old enough to dream, Williams dreamed of flying. He joined the Army after high school and headed straight for flight training. After his Apache helicopter went down last week, he appeared on Iraqi TV. For Williams’s father, a former Army medic, that was a relief of sorts: “Up until that point he was listed as MIA, and you always think the worst.”
Specialist Edgar Adan Hernandez, U.S. Army
21, Alton, Texas
“He’s got a noble character,” his mother, Maria de la Luz Hernandez, says in Spanish, then, inadvertently slipping into the past tense: “He was a good brother, a good son, respectful to the whole world.” Hernandez, though, may well be alive; he was also shown on Iraqi TV.
Chief Warrant Officer II Ronald D. Young Jr., U.S. Army
26, Lithia Springs, Ga.
Friends and relatives say the divorced father of one has always been upbeat and self-confident. He appeared—to them at least—more angry than scared in the brief video clips shown on Iraqi TV. “I believe the Lord will deliver him back to us,” says his father, a Vietnam vet.
Sgt. James Riley, U.S. Army
31, Pennsauken, N.J.
Riley loved his work as an Army machinist, according to his father, Athol. “He wasn’t at all nervous about going over there,” his father says. “He just considered it his job.” Still, Athol Riley says he’s very worried, especially because his son “didn’t have his glasses when he was shown on TV.”
Pfc. Patrick Miller, U.S. Army
23, Park City, Kans.
After working as a welder, Miller enlisted last summer to help pay off student loans and was stationed at Fort Bliss. When he was deployed in December, his wife, Jessa, and children, Tyler, 4, and Makenzie, now 7 months, moved back to Kansas. Now the trees in his neighborhood are covered in yellow ribbons.
Specialist Joseph Hudson, U.S. Army
23, Alamogordo, N.M.
Not long after a March 23 ambush, Hudson’s mother was watch-ing a foreign newscast and saw footage of her son. “He looked so scared,” she says. “I just pray to my God they take care of him.”
MISSING
Specialist James Kiehl, U.S. Army
22, Comfort, Texas
A computer technician with the 507th Maintenance Company, Kiehl was among the missing in the convoy ambush near An Nasiriya. His father, Randy, has been monitoring war news on two televisions, three phone lines and a computer, and keeping up “a strong front and a strong face” for the media—”just in case they show James any news footage” from back home.
Pfc. Tamario Burkett, U.S. Marine Corps
21, Buffalo, N.Y.
He wrote home often, and his letters were filled with advice and instructions for his five younger siblings: to focus on schoolwork and (for 15-year-old Katrina) to stay away from boys. And he also confided his own fears: would God forgive him if he killed someone in combat?
Pfc. Jessica Lynch, U.S. Army
19, Palestine, W.Va.
Hawaii was supposed to be Lynch’s next posting, a dream come true for a girl from a town so small she never saw a shopping mall until she was 17. But as war loomed her orders changed, and she found herself in the Middle East—where, on March 23, she disappeared near An Nasiriya.
[b]Pvt. Brandon Sloan, U.S. Army
19, Bedford Heights, Ohio
Rementa Muldrow-Pippen says her grandson “loves comedy, loves to joke, loves the Temptations, loves football and loves to eat.” His father, Tandy, told a reporter he last talked to his son by telephone just three weeks before he was deployed from Fort Bliss. Then came the news that Sloan’s unit was ambushed on the road to Baghdad.
Pfc. Lori Piestewa, U.S. Army
23, Tuba City, Ariz.
Piestewa grew up in a military family: her grandfather fought in World War II and her father served in Vietnam. A divorced mother of two, she joined the Army in 2000. “She’s a tough kid, and she keeps her head about her,” her brother Wayland told a reporter after her unit ran into an ambush. “Our hope is that she’s... staying alive and staying smart.”
Pvt. Nolen Ryan Hutchings, U.S. Marine Corps
20, Boiling Springs, S.C.
When 7-year-old Edward Nolen was adopted by his stepfather, Larry Hutchings, he took the opportunity to rename himself in honor of his hero, pitcher Nolan Ryan. On March 23 he disappeared while his unit was trying to secure a bridge outside An Nasiriya. “They’ll probably find him somewhere behind a sand dune,” Larry says hopefully.
Master Sgt. Robert J. Dowdy, U.S. Army
38, Cleveland, Ohio
Dowdy has a wife and a teenage daughter in Louisiana.
Sgt. Donald R. Walters, U.S. Army
33, Kansas City, Mo.
The first gulf war left Walters shaken—literally. Back home, “he would sit and shake,” says his father, Norman, because of the “terrible things he saw.” He finally left the Army two years ago. After drifting through various jobs, divorcing and remarrying, the father of three re-enlisted last summer. His unit ran into an ambush near An Nasiriya.
Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata, U.S. Army
35, Pecos, Texas
Mata grew up in a desert town just 200 miles from Fort Bliss, where his 507th Maintenance Company is based.
Cpl. Kemaphoom A. Chanawongse, U.S. Marine Corps
22, Waterford, Conn.
He was born in Thailand, came to America at the age of 8 and joined the Marines despite the fears of his mother, Tan Patchem. “He loved being a Marine,” she says, but “he’s my baby.” Though Chanawongse has been missing since March 23, his mother is confident she will see him again. “Maybe tomorrow he will show up,” she says.
Cpl. Patrick R. Nixon, U.S. Marine Corps
21, Gallatin, Tenn.
Debra and David Nixon still use the present tense when talking about their son, who has been missing since a battle last week in southern Iraq. Nixon’s 7-year-old niece says she won’t go back to her favorite pizza parlor “until her Uncle Pat takes her,” his mother says.
Pvt. Ruben Estrella-Soto, U.S. Army
18, El Paso, Texas
His father opposed his enlisting, but he wanted to study engineering, and the military seemed like a good way to get his education paid for. He disappeared in the ambush on March 23, along with his friend Edgar Hernandez, who later turned up on Iraqi TV. But Estrella-Soto’s fate was unknown. “Not knowing anything is hard,” Ruben Estrella Sr. told reporters.
Lance Cpl. Donald John Cline Jr., U.S. Marine Corps
21, Reno, Nev.
“I just look at my kids and I have to have hope,” says his wife, Tina, who married Cline the day after he finished boot camp. Last week their 2-year-old son Dakota received in the mail a hand-carved pickup truck his father had made. His wife is sure he’s alive. “I feel it so deeply in my heart,” she says. “He has too many people that love him.”
Pvt. Jonathan Gifford, U.S. Marine Corps
30, Macon, Ill.
For nearly a decade Gifford had struggled with whether to join the military, his family says. Last year he joined the Marines.
Lance Cpl. Thomas A. Blair, U.S. Marine Corps
24, Broken Arrow, Okla.
Blair joined the Marines in 1997 after graduating from Broken Arrow High School, where he led the percussion section of the school band.