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Special Tribute Is Held To Honor First African American Woman POW

Source: Stefan Zaklin / Getty

Shoshana Johnson, retired US army specialist, stood proudly before attendees at a Mountain View College Veterans Day event to tell her shocking and inspiring story of becoming America’s first Black female prisoner of war.

“First of all, be grateful of the opportunities and everything you have here,” Johnson said in Dallas on Tuesday. “Sacrifices have been made so that we can live the life that we live.”

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Johnson was serving in a 600-vehicle convoy en route to Iraq in March 2003 when her group was ambushed by enemy forces. She became petrified when she heard gun fire, and sustained two gun shots to her leg. Nine of her fellow soldiers were killed.

Johnson explains that the captors left her her alone when they realized she was a woman.

“They just pound the daylights out of you,” she said. “They didn’t realize I was a female until the Kevlar—my cap came off, and they saw my braids and they backed off.”

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After being detained, the veteran feared she’d never see her two-year-old daughter again. To her great relief, Johnson would soon find out that she was wrong.

“You hear the door being broken down—just like in the movie —and, in clear English, ‘Get down!’ and it was the Marine Corps coming to rescue us,” she said.

Johnson has made it her mission to tell her story ever since. Team Beautiful wants to hear more about this amazing woman! Where is Ava DuVernay when you need her? She needs to get on this and make a movie—like yesterday.

[SOURCE: WFAA]

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This Needs A Biopic: Shoshana Johnson Tells Her Amazing Story As America’s First Black Female Prisoner Of War  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com