Posted on 11/07/2003 7:31:52 AM PST by presidio9
Jessica Lynch has angrily accused the Pentagon of using her for propaganda. The 20-year-old private, portrayed as a female Rambo after she was captured by Iraqis during a blazing gun battle, then freed by American troops, told ABC there was no reason for her rescue from an Iraqi hospital to be filmed.
"They used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff," Lynch said in an interview with Diane Sawyer that airs Tuesday, Veterans Day.
"Yeah, it's wrong," Lynch said. "I don't know why they filmed it, or why they say the things" they said.
That footage of U.S. commandos wheeling a grimacing Lynch to a waiting chopper was among the most dramatic of the war - and helped cement her image as a female warrior.
But Lynch said the true heroes were the soldiers who saved her.
"They're the ones that came in to rescue me," she said. "I'm so thankful that they did what they did; they risked their lives. ... They are my heroes."
She also disputed the Pentagon's early version of her capture by Iraqis, which suggested she had heroically defended herself - going down only after firing all her ammo.
Lynch says her M-16 jammed and she never got off a shot.
"My weapon did jam and I did not shoot, not a round, nothing," she said simply.
There was no immediate response from the Pentagon, which awarded Lynch a Purple Heart for her injuries.
ABC released excerpts of Lynch's first television interview yesterday after the Daily News obtained a copy of Lynch's authorized biography and revealed its most shocking secret - that she was raped by her Iraqi captors.
She has no memory of the rape. The book says there was a three-hour gap after her capture, a blank in her mind, during which she was assaulted.
"Even just the thinking about that, that's too painful," she told Sawyer.
Lynch said she was awakened from her stupor by searing pain.
"I seriously thought I was going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life," she told ABC.
The young soldier said at first she did not trust her Iraqi doctors - and tried to stifle her screams.
Trapped in her bed, Lynch said, she tried to tame her terror by thinking about her family, her fiancé, Sgt. Ruben Contreras, and her G.I. buddy Lori Piestewa.
After she was rescued, she learned Piestewa was dead.
In her book, "I Am a Soldier, Too," author Rick Bragg says the scars on Lynch's body and medical records indicate she was anally raped, and tells the reader to "fill in the blanks of what Jessi lived through on the morning of March 23, 2003."
Lynch says her unit was sent into battle armed only with M-16s - no grenades or anti-tank weapons - and in lumbering trucks that could not keep up with the convoy barreling toward Baghdad.
When the trucks in her unit tried to catch up, radio contact with the main convoy was lost - and so were they.
She was filled with foreboding.
"Jessi's fear of being left behind was beginning to come true," Bragg wrote.
They really don't put up with problem cases and the incompitent. If you can't handle the simple things, you're out.
" and kids? how heavy is it? This isn't just a pistol."
I'll guess 6-7lbs. See may have had the carbine, the M4. My AR has a heavy barrel and 11-12 y/o girls shot it for most of a day, for days. It's ~8-9lbs.(CRS)
Full drawers. Scared shitless.
Kind of amazing to me, the way some people turn on her when she won't parrot the party line. I guess "support the troops" only applies to those of the correct political affiliation.
You should've kept your rifle clean, missy. It was Your responsibility as a "soldier" to keep it maintainted. Properly maintained, it's a wonderful weapon, little girl.
Oh, I don't know about that one. She will be interviewed on a radio station this coming week in my metro area, which means she will be on many radio interviews this coming week in addition to the Sawyer interview. She is in full swing for the media blitz to hype her book.
Heh, today when I heard on the car radio that Lynch said her rifle jammed and she never fired a shot, my first thought was, "Wonder if she knows about the forward assist."
FR is a microcosm. If their misrepresentation worked here, and it did to the dull-minded, it worked everywhere.
Or you could see it as an attempt to show another dissatisfied solider angry at the Pentagon - as has been the case for months now.
The title is a lie. She was hurt but she didn't angrily lash out. How many times to we see titles that say Bush "lashed out" at this or that and we know they're exaggerating.
It's self-evident.
Sorry, but I think you have the same problem.
Not when it's so obvious.
We know, you've said it enough times on this thread..three time to me alone.
Then why do you ask what I meant? That looks obvious too.
Actually she has been on TV more than Lynch and does have a book deal I think. Jessica was the lone rescuee for ten days, them's the breaks.
Of it could've jammed before firing which you refuse to mention.
You must go through life angry all the time then because thereare people of every stripe that get the spotlight more than others.
I hope you will apologize for calling her a liar when it's confirmed.
I lived in West Virginia for twenty two years - grew up there just a couple of miles from the Lynch family. To bad the other soldiers didn't get a big book deal or much attention from the media. Not even the same amount of pension for the others.
So you think that if O'Reilly or Rush gets a book deal, then everyone in the media should get the same book deal too? How socialist of you.
You got something against it?
The title is a liberal lie quoting her out of context.
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