On June 6th, a panel discussion was held in St. Louis to discuss the death of LaVena Johnson.  She was the first Missouri woman killed in Iraq, just eight days shy of her 20th birthday.  Today, three years after her death, questions still surround the circumstances of this tragedy.  Her father, Dr. John Johnson, and other family members, have dedicated countless hours researching and traveling the country looking for an answer.

Who was LaVena Johnson?  She was a St. Louis native, a young black woman, an honor roll student, and violinist.  As her father explains, he had saved up the money for her to go to school, but she instead joined the Army out of high school to lighten the load on her family.  Her recruiter told her she would not be going to Iraq.  She was subsequently deployed with the 129th Corps Support Battalion and, like over 4,000 other Americans so far, died in Iraq.

As the occupation of Iraq approaches its grim fifth anniversary, the anti-war movement finds itself at an impasse. The two major national anti-war groups, United For Peace & Justice (UFPJ) and Act Now to Stop War and Racism (ANSWER) will not be bringing their forces together to build the largest possible event to oppose the war – again.

ANSWER had proposed that all anti-war forces, including UFPJ, come together in a broad coalition to build a nationally focused anti-war demonstration in DC on Saturday, March 15th. UFPJ announced that they would instead be building what they hoped would be the largest non-violent civil disobedience action in DC on Wednesday March 19th, the anniversary of the war. To her credit, Cindy Sheehan attempted to bring ANSWER, UFPJ, and others together in a movement-wide united coalition to take joint action in March. However, the UFPJ steering committee backed out saying, “It was not clear how being part of another coalitional structure would help move all this work forward.”