Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson
The story of Shoshana Johnson differs markedly from that of Jessica Lynch, the Army POW whose rescue in Iraq received great fanfare in the media back in 2003. Contrary to how the Bush administration and the media at that time portrayed the incident, Lynch was not the only American or woman captured by Iraqis during the early days of the war. Johnson, in fact, was part of the same supply convoy and was seriously wounded, but her tale was largely ignored or even belittled by the press.
Johnson, who has just published her memoir (I'm Still Standing: From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen--My Journey Home), argues that race may have played a role in how the media treated hers and Lynch’s stories differently. Lynch, who was young and white, was lionized as a hero for enduring her capture by the enemy, while Johnson—an African-American and single mother—was largely forgotten when she was rescued two weeks after Lynch. Some stories even portrayed Johnson as greedy for fighting the military over its diagnosis of her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In her book, the nation’s first female black prisoner of war describes her struggle to cope with PTSD following her return home and recovery from being wounded in each leg. Johnson told the Associated Press that the media’s treatment of her ordeal was “kind of hurtful,” adding: “If I’d been a petite, cutesy thing, it would’ve been different.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Ex-POW in Iraq War Recalls Nightmares, Depression (by Kimberly Hefling, Washington Post)
Ex-POW Shoshana Johnson: Harassment Over Star Status Forced Her to Quit Army (by Mark Mooney, ABC News)
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