By Lorenzo E. Martin | SACOBSERVER.COM WIRE SERVICES

(NNPA) — Anyone who has been watching the Iraqi war with its embedded journalists knows about the courageous rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch by U.S. Army Special Forces on April 1.

The 19-year-old woman has become a media darling even to the extent of the press conjuring up stories of her wounds and hand-to-hand struggle against Iraqi troops before being taken a prisoner of war about nine days earlier.

African Americans constituting over 21 percent of the military, according to the military's own records, with African American women near 40 percent, have become invisible in the mainstream (White dominated) press and electronic media.

Who knows about Shoshana Johnson, who was captured the same day with Lynch and others of the 507th Maintenance Co. stationed out of Fort Bliss?

Johnson, 30, grew up an army brat with her two sisters, spending most of their lives on army installations in the United States and abroad.

Graduating from El Paso High School where she participated in the school's R O.T.C. program, the popular "Shana," as she was called, joined the military in 1998 after two years attending the University of Texas at El Paso. She thought the army would serve as a good foundation in her pursuit of a career in the culinary arts.

Coming from a military family where her father, as well as several uncles and an aunt, served in the armed forces, it seemed only natural for her to follow her younger sister, Nikki, (an army captain). Johnson enlisted in 2002. She was assigned to the 507th Maintenance Co. at Fort Bliss, Texas.

Johnson received orders for deployment in February and with the support of her family and her renewed relationship with God, she would have the strength to leave her two-year-old daughter, Janelle, behind and serve her country with dignity.

When approached by family and friends about leaving and serving in Iraq, she said that she was fully aware of the risks when she enlisted and would accept her responsibility as a soldier.

Johnson and six others were rescued Sunday, April 13. Where are the headlines about her?

Meanwhile the mainstream media, which has nearly a 99 percent White male and female look, ignores the humanity of Blacks who are serving the US Armed forces as if they are only cannon fodder and not the moral equivalent of Whites serving in the country's armed forces.

Lorenzo E. Martin is the editor and publisher of the Chicago Standard Newspaper and a member of NNPA.