Josh Powell loved to say “tatonka,” the Lakota word for “bison” that was made famous in the film Dances With Wolves.
“Josh would say ‘tatonka’ about any good thing and he would put his fingers up like a pair of horns and everybody got a kick out of it,” said Josh’s father, David Powell. “So they started calling Josh ‘Tatonka’ and that’s the word they associated with their friend.”
That nickname is now proudly displayed on a Black Hawk helicopter at the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The naming of the helicopter honors Josh, a New Berlin native and Pleasant Plains High School graduate who was killed during 2010 in Afghanistan in the same type of aircraft. David attended a May 15 ceremony this year at the U.S. Army base to officially christen the helicopter “Tatonka.”
It was a very emotional day for David, his nephew in the National Guard, and three retired members from Josh’s Army unit who attended the ceremony.
“The thing we have peace about is Josh wanted to be there; the Army was his career,” David recalled. “I feel sorry for families that had soldiers in the National Guard who were suddenly deployed because a lot of them didn’t want to be there. But Josh wanted to be there.”
Colonel Tyler Partridge, the brigade commander, sent David a note beforehand about the enthusiasm his soldiers displayed leading up to the naming ceremony.
“It means a lot to have you present! The crew chiefs have taken immense pride working on ‘Tatonka’ throughout the week to get her ready for tomorrow.” Col. Partridge wrote. “I have not seen morale this high in a full year as the commander, and it shows in the aircraft. Thank you for letting us carry Joshua forward with us!”
The May 15 ceremony was the third time that David had been back to Fort Campbell since his son’s death. The first was in 2011 when Josh’s unit, nicknamed “The Warlords,” redeployed back to the United States. That was when David learned what Josh truly meant to his fellow soldiers.
“All of the soldiers were saying they wouldn’t still be in the Army if it weren’t for Josh, that he was a good trainer and kept morale up,” David said. “So I asked the colonel why all of those older guys were saying that Josh kept them there, and he said, ‘Josh achieved more in five years than some of my soldiers have achieved in 10 or 15 years.’”
Joshua D. Powell was born Nov. 10, 1984, to David and Susan Powell. He graduated from Pleasant Plains High School in 2003 and signed up for ROTC at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks Josh decided he wanted to join the U.S. Army full-time, so he went from being in the Illinois Air National Guard to serving with the 101st Airborne Division.
Staff Sergeant Powell was assigned to the A/542 Air Ambulance at Fort Campbell and was deployed to Iraq from November 2005 to September 2006.
“When Josh got back from being a medevac he didn’t say much to me, so I talked to his commander and he said, ‘The kid had it going on, he carried a lot of bodies, he saw a lot of bad stuff, and he did a superb job,’” recalled David. “After that Josh called me and said ‘Dad, I’m signing up for air assault. I’m tired of being shot at and not being able to shoot back.’”
Josh was assigned to A Company, 6-101 as a Black Hawk crew chief operating a 50-caliber machine gun and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2008. Josh was preparing for his third deployment in 2010 when he and David took a hunting trip together.
“He just said right out of the blue, ‘Dad, I don’t think I’m going to make it back,’” David recalled. “It put goosebumps on me. I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And he replied, ‘Don’t worry, it’s OK.’”
On Sept. 21, 2010, Josh was the Black Hawk crew chief on a five-helicopter special operations night mission in the mountains of Afghanistan. On board his helicopter were four members of the Lancers, a sister unit to the Warlords, and five Navy SEALs. The pilot of Josh’s helicopter was attempting a “pinnacle” landing where the aircraft hovers with one wheel set upon a rocky outcropping so the SEALs could dismount.
“The Army provided us with a transcript of that night and the last words Josh said were ‘Sir, this landing is not achievable. We need to do a go-around to the left,’” David said. “But the pilot was disoriented because of his night vision goggles and veered to the right instead, and the helicopter ended up crashing.”
There was only one survivor from the crash, an interpreter for the SEALs who was paralyzed from the neck down. The other two Black Hawk helicopters dropped their SEAL teams to retrieve the fallen soldiers while two Apache helicopter gunships provided covering fire to keep the approaching Taliban forces away. The crashed helicopter was then destroyed so none of it could fall into enemy hands.
Josh was supposed to be home on leave at the time, but had donated his leave time to some fellow soldiers because “’those guys have families with wives and kids and I don’t,’” David remembered his son saying. David texted his son the night before the crash.
“He said ‘Dad, we’re just flying around dropping SEALs off and letting them do their thing, all of our missions are in the middle of the night,’” David recalled. “So I texted back, ‘Be careful’ and he replied, ‘Always.’ Those were his last words to me.”
The next morning David awoke to a TV news report that said nine NATO service members had been killed in a special operations helicopter crash, and at 2 p.m. that day military officials knocked on his door to inform him of Josh’s death. But the hardest part was telling Josh’s brother, Zachary, who was born to David and his second wife in 2005, about his older brother’s death.
“Zachary was five years old at the time and I had to tell him when he got off the school bus,” David said. “He wore his camouflage clothes for five days in a row because Josh was his hero.”
What followed was a lot of national news media coverage, including a heartbreaking photo of David holding a weeping Zachary during Josh’s funeral service at Camp Butler National Cemetery in Springfield. The photo was published in an Austin, Texas, newspaper where a woman named Judith Livingston saw it and got in touch with the Powell family.
“She said, ‘Do you care if I send your son a package?’” David said. “Well, this went on for 15 years. Every holiday Zachary looked forward to getting a goodie bag in the mail from Austin, Texas. It’s little things like that, plus support from organizations like the Gold Star Mission, that made everything easier.”
Things weren’t easy for Josh’s fellow soldiers, who had a tough time dealing with his loss and their own combat experiences. Josh’s best friend from the unit stayed with David shortly after Josh’s death, and a year later that friend killed himself. Another friend who struggled with Josh’s death also came to stay with the Powells and was shortly thereafter killed in a helicopter crash during a peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Desert.
“I joked around with the guys at the May 15 naming ceremony and told them, ‘Please don’t come and stay at my house because it hasn’t been good for the people who have,’” David said. “These soldiers develop really close bonds and they have a really hard time if a close friend is killed.”
Ron Zeilinger, in the book Lakota Life, details the meaning of the word “tatonka,” and it seems like it was written to summarize Josh’s life:
“The buffalo is a symbol of self-sacrifice; it gives until there is nothing left. This was imitated by the people in their lives. To be generous and give what you have to others in need, or to honor them, is one of the most highly respected ways of behaving.”
SSG Joshua Powell’s awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal; two Air Medals; Army Achievement Medal; Joint Meritorious Unit Award; Meritorious Unit Citation; Army Good Conduct Medal; National Defense Service Medal; Afghanistan Campaign Medal; Iraq Campaign Medal; Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal; Global War on Terrorism Service Medal; NCO Professional Development Ribbon (2); Army Service Ribbon; Overseas Service Ribbon (2); Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal; NATO Medal; Combat Action Badge; and Army Aviation Badge.
“I had a reporter ask me if I thought about Josh every minute of the day,” David said. “I replied no, but I do think about him and his service every single day.”
