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She heard 'Get down!' and knew she'd be free

America's first black, female prisoner of war describes her ordeal to an Eckerd College audience.

By MARCUS FRANKLIN
Published February 23, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - First she heard kicking at the door.

Then Army Spec. Shoshana Johnson heard voices speaking English. At that moment, Johnson knew she and six other U.S. soldiers being held prisoner in Iraq would be saved.

"Get down! Get down!" the voices ordered on that morning of April 13, 2003.

"You hear clear English, you know it's got to be Americans," Johnson said Tuesday evening. "United States Marine Corps came to the rescue. I was so happy to see them."

Johnson, 32, spoke in Fox Hall at Eckerd College about her 22 days of captivity that began in March just after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Johnson, who suffered gunshot wounds to her legs, is the first African-American, female prisoner of war in U.S. military history. She received the Purple Heart, Prisoner of War and Bronze Star medals.

During her 41-minute speech, she offered the 300-plus in the audience some insights into her imprisonment and what was going on in her head.

First, though, Johnson talked about her family's immigration from Panama in 1978. Her father joined the U.S. Army and instilled strict discipline in Johnson and her two sisters.

"Drill Sgt. Johnson never let us get away with anything," Johnson said to laughter. "There was no makeup, boyfriends, no going out partying. He always reminded us he came to the U.S. so we could have a better life, not to get a boyfriend. Grades and education were the most important things in our family.

"My parents had three girls, and they always wanted us to be anything we could imagine ourselves to be," Johnson said. "At that time in Panama, that really wasn't possible for three young black girls."

At 30, after leaving behind her studies and partying at the University of Texas at El Paso, Johnson found herself traveling in Iraq in the Army's 507th Maintenance Company of cooks, clerks and mechanics.

They made a wrong turn. Before they knew it, the soldiers were being fired upon, and a dump truck was trying to run them off the road.

"It sounded like rocks hitting the windshield," Johnson recalled as Fox Hall grew silent.

Once they came to a stop, the company's leader told her and the others to take cover.

"As soon as I hit the ground and started to low crawl underneath the truck, I got shot," said Johnson, who sat on a stool at the podium during her speech.

The company's weapons "were jamming." Company members were being shot. Eleven would die. The leader of Johnson's company told them: "We gotta give up. We have no means to defend ourselves at all, to fight back."

During her captivity, Johnson said, she prayed. Her captors operated on her leg.

"It saved my leg, if not my life," Johnson said. "I was pleasantly surprised when I was treated with kindness," she said.

Johnson, the only woman among the seven POWs, said she was separated temporarily from the men. She doesn't know all the details of the men's captivity because they refuse to discuss it.

Another female company member, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, also was separated during the ambush and had been rescued earlier on April 1 by commandos at a hospital.

Johnson said she and the other soldiers never begrudged Lynch the money and attention she received, including a book and made-for-TV movie.

"None of us asked for this," Johnson said. "Even now I get more attention than the guys. Is that fair?"

She and Lynch remain in touch. "Me and Lynch are cool," Johnson said.

Johnson told the audience she was rescued on a Sunday morning in April. After being relocated seven times in 22 days, Johnson heard the kicking and the voices at the door.

"I remember thinking, "God, I've got to get to a phone so I can call my parents.' One of the Marines, I think it was the colonel, said, "Soldier, by the time we get you to a secure phone, CNN's already going to have your picture broadcast.' And he was right."

"The infamous picture," as Johnson put it Tuesday, showed Johnson being carried on a stretcher during the rescue.

Johnson received two gifts during Tuesday's visit: A St. Petersburg city official presented her with a key to the city, and Tony Taylor, a 55-year-old St. Petersburg Marine veteran, gave her a dozen red roses.

Marcus Franklin can be reached at mfranklin@sptimes.com or 727 893-8488.

[Last modified February 23, 2005, 00:34:19]