Guest Author - Osha Gray Davidson

The following article first appeared in Rolling Stone in May of 2004. It is written by Osha Gray Davidson. I received permission from Mr. Davidson to reprint the article here to include in my series of "Native Americans in the U.S. Armed Forces". Due to the length of the article, it will be divided up into seven parts. To read the article in its entirety, please click on the link provided at the end of the article. Thank you. Phyllis Doyle Burns


A Wrong Turn in the Desert - Part Six
By Osha Gray Davidson
Rolling Stone, 27 May 2004


Nasiriyah. 23 March: roughly 0710 hours
As the convoy turned south into the city, the street itself seemed to explode. Heavy machine-gun fire erupted from all sides and AKs poured bullets down from the rooftops. Rocket-propelled grenades zeroed in on the large trucks. In seconds, the convoy disintegrated into a blur of chaos, dust, violence and adrenaline. The goal now was simply to survive, to get out of what the military aptly calls the "kill zone." The faster-moving vehicles raced ahead of the large trucks. Drivers mashed their gas pedals to the floor, but supply trucks aren’t built for speed. The Iraqis had made piles of debris in the streets, forcing the Americans to slalom around them while under the nonstop barrage. Tires were shot to tatters. Engines began to overheat.

Sgt. Donald Walters, who was trapped under fire when his truck was disabled, was taken prisoner. He was later executed – shot twice in the back. A soldier in the cab of one truck was struck by a bullet in the forehead and died instantly. Another had his arm shattered by a bullet. Another was hit in the hip. Another in the knee. The dust and flying sand jammed many M-16s, making it impossible to fight back.

Piestewa raced her Humvee through the city, steering around roadblocks, RPG and mortar strikes. It was as chaotic inside the vehicle as it was outside. Dowdy was firing his M-16 while shouting at the drivers they passed to "Hurry up, hurry up, go, go!" In back were two soldiers – Sgt. George Buggs and Spc. Edward Anguiano – picked up during the attack when their wrecker bogged down in the sand. They were shouting to each other as one fired a machine gun and the other tried to pick off attackers with his M-16. Jessica Lynch’s gun had jammed before she could get off a shot. She looked over at Piestewa and was surprised to see that her friend appeared calm – intent on what she was doing, but in control.

Up ahead, Spc. Edgar Hernandez was maneuvering an ungainly five-ton tractor-trailer through the ambush with Shoshana Johnson in the passenger seat. They crossed the Euphrates River into a more open area – only to find that the stretch of road was even more heavily fortified, lined with berms protecting scores of Iraqi soldiers and fedayeen militiamen. The gunfire intensified and so did the incoming RPGs and mortar shells. Hernandez ducked below the dashboard as bullets came through the window. He spotted too late a dump truck the Iraqis had parked in the middle of the road. He swerved to avoid a collision, and his truck jackknifed as it skidded to the right. It came to rest with the cab in the dirt and the trailer sticking into the road.

Piestewa’s Humvee was close behind, going at least forty-five miles per hour and weaving to escape gunfire. She had just turned to go around the disabled trailer when an RPG hit her front-left wheel well. Inside the truck’s cab, Johnson was firing her M-16 when she felt a jolt. She and Hernandez had taken hits from RPGs, and Johnson’s first thought was that they’d been hit again. But the impact was stronger this time: The entire truck had been shoved forward. Hernandez looked out his window, back toward the trailer. He saw the wrecked Humvee sticking out from under the truck. The blast from the RPG had thrown the Humvee to the right, where it slid below the trailer, still traveling at a high rate of speed, and plowed into the truck’s massive hitch.

Percy Piestewa knew that the men in uniform knocking on the door weren’t bearing good news. But it could have been worse. Lori was missing in action. She could be alive. As word spread through Tuba City, family and clan members hurried over to be with the Piestewas. The vigil began. Every evening at six o’clock, as the sun was rising in Iraq, the Piestewas stood outside and, in traditional Hopi fashion, offered corn pollen and food. "We hoped that would give the girls the nourishment, the strength to endure," says Percy. "If they were in captivity and being tortured and stuff, that would give them the strength to deal with that."


Part seven of this story will be printed May 11, 2008