Lori Piestewa

Lori Piestewa (born December 14, 1979, Tuba City, Arizona, U.S.—died March 23, 2003, Al-Nāṣiriyyah, Iraq) was a U.S. Army soldier who became the first American servicewoman to perish in the Iraq War (2003–11) and the first Native American servicewoman in history to die in combat on foreign soil. Piestewa was captured by enemy forces during an ambush in Iraq and mortally wounded. She was awarded the Purple Heart, a military decoration bestowed on service members for bravery in action, and she received many other commemorations.

Early life

A member of the Hopi people, Piestewa was born to Terry and Priscilla (“Percy”; née Baca) Piestewa in Tuba City, Arizona, the largest community on the Navajo Nation reservation, which borders and includes several Hopi villages. She was the youngest of four children and was given the Hopi name Qotsa-hon-mana (also spelled Köcha-hon-mana), meaning “White Bear Girl.” Piestewa’s family had a history of supporting the military—her father served in the Vietnam War and one of her grandfathers served in World War II. From a young age she excelled at softball and had a strong sense of duty and a desire to help others. She also longed to follow in her family’s footsteps by enlisting in the military. In high school she joined the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC), eventually becoming a JROTC commanding officer.

During her senior year, Piestewa became pregnant by her boyfriend, Bill Whiterock, a Navajo man one year older than she who had graduated from her high school and enlisted in the army. They married in October 1997, shortly before Whiterock was to report for basic training. Meanwhile, Piestewa took advanced courses to allow her to graduate from high school by December. The following year they moved to Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), North Carolina, where Piestewa gave birth to their son, Brandon, in May 1998. In 1999 she gave birth to their daughter, Carla. However, the marriage soon fell apart, and by October 2000 Whiterock had been discharged from the military. They moved back to Arizona and separated, and Piestewa and her children lived with her parents.

Enlistment and training

Life in Tuba City, Arizona, offered few job opportunities for Piestewa, and her thoughts returned to a career in the military to support her family. She soon enlisted in the army, and in March 2001 she reported to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for basic training. She completed her advanced individual training at Fort Gregg-Adams (formerly Fort Lee), Virginia, and was designated a private first class. Assigned to the 507th Maintenance Company, headquartered in Fort Bliss, Texas, Piestewa performed clerical work and kept track of supplies. She shared a room with another private first class, Jessica Lynch, with whom she became close friends.

In January 2003 Piestewa’s unit was informed that it would be deployed overseas for service in Iraq as part of a military invasion that would become known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, led by the United States and the United Kingdom. Though she was recovering from shoulder surgery after being injured during a training exercise (and therefore had the option to stay at Fort Bliss), Piestewa volunteered for deployment so that she could remain with Lynch. In February 2003 they shipped off to the Middle East.

Ambush

On March 23, 2003, Piestewa was part of a military convoy that was heading from Kuwait toward Baghdad to deliver supplies when her company became lost, took a wrong turn, and ended up in the city of Al-Nāṣiriyyah. Serving as the driver of a Humvee at the back of the convoy, Piestewa had earlier stopped to pick up several unit members, including Lynch, whose truck had broken down. On the outskirts of Al-Nāṣiriyyah, the company was ambushed and Piestewa’s vehicle was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade. The resulting explosion and crash killed several company members and severely wounded Piestewa and Lynch.

After the ensuing battle, Piestewa, Lynch, and several other soldiers were taken prisoner and brought to a nearby hospital, where Piestewa died of her injuries. However, for several days her fate and that of her company mates remained unknown. Nine days after the ambush, Lynch (the sole survivor from Piestewa’s Humvee) was rescued alive from the hospital by special forces, an operation that made her the subject of international attention. Piestewa’s body, which had been buried in a grave near the hospital, was recovered in the same operation.

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Commemoration

In addition to picking up her comrades when they were in danger, Piestewa is believed to have drawn her weapon in battle and fought valiantly before being overcome. Her bravery has been honored through several memorials and commemorations. She was posthumously promoted to the rank of specialist and awarded the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War medal. The Lori Piestewa National Native American Games were established in Arizona the same year that she died, and the games have grown to become the largest event of their kind, bringing thousands of Indigenous athletes from across the country to Piestewa’s home state for a multiday competition. In April 2003 Squaw Peak, a mountain near Phoenix, was renamed Piestewa Peak; the name change was codified by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names in 2008. In 2011 the Directorate of Training Sustainment headquarters at Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning), Georgia, was named Piestewa Hall, and many other sites in her home state and around the country have been renamed in her honor.

Jessica Lynch, Piestewa’s comrade in battle and friend in life, also paid public tribute to Piestewa during a hearing before the U.S. Congress in April 2007 on the misleading information that circulated regarding Lynch’s capture and rescue in 2003 and the death of U.S. Army Ranger Specialist Pat Tillman in the Afghanistan War in 2004. At the end of her statement to Congress, Lynch said:

My hero is my friend, Lori Piestewa, who died in Iraq but set an example for a generation of Hopi and Native American women and little girls everywhere about the contributions just one soldier can make.