Staff Reporter, The Daily Voice
- By all accounts, 19-year-old LaVena Johnson was a talented young woman. An honor roll student at Hazelwood Central High School in Florissant, Missouri, Johnson played the violin, volunteered in the community, and got straight A’s in her senior year in high school.
To help her pay for college by herself, Johnson joined the Army when recruiters told her she was unlikely to go to Iraq or Afghanistan because she was a woman. Her mom did not approve of the decision.
Nevertheless, Johnson joined and after boot camp training at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, she was assigned as a weapons supply manager to the 129th Corps Support Battalion and shipped to Iraq.
Ten weeks later, she died there.
