Army Private First Class LaVena Johnson, a nineteen-year-old from the St. Louis-area municipality of Florissant, Missouri, died near Balad, Iraq in July 2005. The Army declared her death a suicide, and ever since then LaVena’s family has fought to have the Army re-examine the evidence and open a new investigation.

After spending some months blogging here about news reports regarding the Army’s response, I launched an online petition addressed to the two Congressional Armed Services Committees, requesting that they direct the Army to revisit Lavena’s case. That petition closed on May 24, 2008, with nearly 12,000 signatures. Arrangements are now being made to deliver those signatures to the Armed Services Committees. These topics are covered in detail at the website bearing LaVena’s name, which I also created. Even though the petition is closed, constituents of the members of the two committees can still lend their voices to the effort by contacting those legislators directly.

Much of that earlier content at the dedicated site is indeed here at Waveflux. A simple search here for “LaVena Johnson” would help you locate any Waveflux post containing her name. Alternatively, you may click the term “LaVena Johnson” in the tag cloud in the lower right-hand column on any page here. I would strongly recommend, however, that interested parties visit the official website. Thanks very much for your attention.