As with most true/false, real/fake, modern/postmodern conundrums, questioning the story of origin might be the most fruitful way of fighting the manufactured icons and mutton-headed boosterism that’s always needed to urge a sane populace to embrace the insanity of war. In this case, the origin story belongs to Jessica Lynch and her best friend, Lori Piestewa, 23, the single mother who was killed in the same ambush on the supply convoy, along with 11 other soldiers.
The origin question is basic: Why did Jessica and Lori need to join the Army anyway; why did the road to kindergarten teaching and successful single-motherhood have to end up anywhere near that violent ambush in Iraq? Both were from financially struggling American families in places the coastal media regard as obscure at best. Under the war propagandists’ desire to exploit Jessica’s valor lies a twisted truth about America’s real economy, where underprivileged teacher hopefuls need to go to war to fund their hope. Still, Jessica had true valor under fire. She refused iconic status and chose truth over fake glory.
Lori, though, was never made into much of an icon by the Bush fabulists or the national news media. Maybe it’s because she was killed immediately -- and such killings became commonplace -- with none of the suspense and drama of the Jessica Lynch rescue tale. Besides, Lori wasn’t the TV type, not the right white-girl-next-door. Inconveniently, Lori was a Hopi-Mexican from a poor family in unromantic Tuba City, Arizona, and what do the celebrity-making media care about another dead American Indian?
Another origin question. Who on Earth needed this young mother -- driving blindsided into some ambush in Iraq -- to “serve her country”? (I can tell you, as a taxpayer, citizen, and coward, that I never asked for this service.) But icon-making is nothing if not ironic. The Hopi culture places great value on warriors, on service to one’s people. Like many American Indians, Lori came from a distinguished line of military veterans -- and out of their grief at losing a native daughter, her community elevated Lori’s memory to a place of honor.
Six years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it’s impossible to imagine any of that war’s planners, schemers, and propagandists honored the way that Arizona has honored Lori Piestewa. Who will name anything -- even a fetid ditch, a broken sewer, a breached levee -- after such pro-war figures as George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Bremer, or so many others, those who urged, led, and cheered the policies that resulted in Lori’s wrong turn in Iraq? Only months from their departure from power and influence, these policymakers’ reputations trade lower than a fake pack of "Most Wanted" cards on EBay.
But in Arizona, visible all around Phoenix, a young soldier and mother will always be honored. Honored without questions about post-modern irony or authentic vs. fake; honored with realities -- granite and sky-piercing altitude -- as long as Piestewa Peak rises above the desert metropolis.
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