Vegas gives key to the city to ex-POW Shoshana Johnson

[oldcoot]

This is a fairly nice little article about Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson. According to this article Johnson met with Mayor Goodman on Friday and he gave her the keys to the city. He also declared the day "Shoshana Johnson Day." The article also lists the medals she won which are the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal. To read more, see: http://www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1441388&nav=8faOHyjj .

[Cheswick2.0]

1. that's good

I am glad to hear this.

[LightTheMatch]

2. That's fantastic!

I am so glad to hear that, after all she's been through, that she is also getting some great recognition.

[Richardo]

3. Thanks for this article...

...nice to hear.

[donsu]

4. Vegas did good!

wish there was a picture

[Nevernose]

8. Your wish is granted

[donsu]

9. oh thank you Argumentus

is so much nicer seeing her smiling. I wish her well.

[zbdent]

12. What? No US Flag draped over her

as she's carried out on a stretcher???

It's obvious that her injuries are to her legs!

And is that one soldier yelling at the cameraman "Get that f---ing thing away from me or I'll shoot you!"?

[zbdent]

5. Remember, she was captured, along with several other

soldiers, the same day as "War Hero" Jessica.

Was held captive longer, too.

This is not an Anti-Jessica, this is an assault on the PR campaign.

Is Shoshana getting the same media accolades? No.

[pbeal]

6. Shes Black what do you expect

The whole Jessica Lynch big ticket book deal proves that the US has a Race problem,

Shoshana Johnson was captured at the same time, held for a longer period of time, and remembers what happened. of the two stories Johnsons is the one I want to hear.

[maha]

7. Agree n/t

[Karenina]

10. I want confirmation that the American "rescuers"

REFUSED at first to believe she was American until her more melanin-challenged buds VOUCHED for her...

[oldcoot]

11. Are you referring to the "Dateline" interview?

In the "Dateline" interview, Johnson refers to the Marines ordering everyone to get down on the floor during the rescue. Johnson was not able to comply immediately because of her injured leg. According to the transcript, Johnson or one of the other captives yelled that she was an American and the Marines said that "Well, she still got to get
down." From my interpretation of the interview, I assumed that they were requiring everyone to get on the floor, whether or not they were American (see: http://www.msnbc.com/news/945981.asp?0sl=-10 ). I did not think that they assumed that she was an Iraqi because she had dark skin.

[Ergotron]

13. It's the "pretty white girl-next-door" syndrome.

The big difference between Pvt. Lynch and Pvt. Johnson is that the media marketed Lynch as the pretty, white, all-American, girl-next-door. Many Americans can relate to her since she looks like many Americans. As only 13% or so of Americans are black, Pvt. Johnson was not as 'marketable' as Pvt. Lynch.

We saw the same thing in the mid '90s with the distinctly different reporting on Bosnia and Rwanda. We saw lots and lots of coverage of the refugees in Bosnia because, like the majority of the news watching American population, they were white, lived in houses we could identify with, drove cars that looked kind of like ours, and had little white kids that looked truly pitiful on TV. Rwanda, on the other hand was just "another black country in Africa". Most Americans can't even find Africa on a map, let alone find Rwanda. (They can't find America on an unmarked map either, but that's another thread, eh?). In Bosnia the masacre of a few hundred men was headline news for weeks. In Rwanda, the murder of hundreds of thousands of people was only big news for a day or so...then we went back to being overly concerned over who in Hollywood is dating/screwing/divorcing whom. Pretty sad, actually.