On ‘a sad but happy day,’ Avella salutes soldier who lost her life while saving another
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Retired Master Sgt. Joy Clark poses Saturday with the sign commemorating the former Avella woman who saved her life.
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Retired Master Sgt. Joy Clark traveled from Iowa to Avella to honor Lt. Col. Juanita Warman.
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Soloist Sunnie Kopko sings “This Land Is Your Land” near the opening of Saturday’s ceremony.
Tears flowing freely, Retired Master Sgt. Joy Clark recounted the horrors and heroics that enveloped her a decade ago – and still do.
She was at the U.S. Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, reviewing security functions with Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, when a lone gunman entered. “She went to the floor and pulled me down,” Clark said. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that she saved my life.”
Warman, however, was unable to save her own. She was one of 13 people slain by the gunman, an Army officer, who also wounded 32 others on Nov. 5, 2009 – the deadliest mass shooting at an American military base.
Though she resides 800 miles away, in Des Moines, Iowa, Clark was in westernmost Washington County on Saturday to honor a fallen hero, one who, through her instinctive action, enabled the master sergeant to survive. Clark joined Avella in saluting Juanita Warman for her 25 years of service in the Army Reserve, for her valor, for making her former hometown proud.
“It’s a sad but happy day,” Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said during a late-morning ceremony in which a section of Route 50 in Avella was named “Lt. Col. Juanita Warman Memorial Highway.” A crowd of more than 150 endured the chill outside Avella Volunteer Fire Department, including Warman’s mother, Eva Waddle, and other family members; veteran groups members; the three county commissioners; and all three Independence Township supervisors, including emcee Tom Jennings.
The Avella Area High School and U.S. Army bands performed admirably, as did soloist Sunnie Kopko with “This Land Is Your Land,” a Warman favorite. Casey, who was Army chief of staff at the time of the massacre, was among the speakers of an hourlong program that was well paced.
Organizers also unveiled a copy of the sign that will be placed on Route 50.
That will be a memorial to a woman who attended elementary and junior high classes at Avella Area, then later graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and became a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Her specialty was caring for individuals recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. She was a few days from being deployed to Iraq when the shooting occurred.
Although she said she did not know Warman well, Clark recognized that the lieutenant colonel “was a wonderful officer. She was a phenomenal teacher, an absolutely shining example of what every officer should be. She was willing to learn from anybody who had something to teach.”
In honor of the 13 fallen Army comrades, Clark has run a half-marathon nine of the 10 months this year. The exception was October, when she entered her first full marathon – in Warman’s honor. Clark held up an American flag the entire 26.2 miles.
Retired Gen. Casey again praised Warman for her service and sacrifice. She is buried in Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery, where the general walked with Warman’s family to the lieutenant colonel’s grave nearly 10 years ago. He can empathize, for his father, George Sr., a major general, was the highest-ranking soldier to die in Vietnam.
State Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll Township, lauded Warman for her resolve and diligence as a military officer, which she attributed partly to an Avella influence.
“This town of fewer than 1,000 residents, it’s what I like to call ‘Southwestern Pennsylvania Magic.’ This little coal town is where she learned passion to serve. She wanted to be right there in Iraq, ready, willing and able to give her passion.”
Four years after the shootings, Nidal Hasan, now 49, confessed to being the assailant. Hasan was stripped of his rank of major and awaits execution on 13 counts of murder and the attempted slayings of 32.
One victim received a richly deserved honor Saturday, making it, indeed, “a sad but happy day.”