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.
I won't quibble with your characterization of FNC as conservative. But where's the other one?
Since you were fooling around in the in box, would it have killed you to remove my name?
Then I guess that makes up for her losing mine.
You are right, sir. Thise nitwits are pissed off at Jessica Lynch because she refused to play their game and dance for them. I'm a staunch conservative and I fully back President Bush. But this does it for me. I don't think I can come back in here and make another post. These folks are like vicious dogs, so highly trained in one way of thinking that even when their "side" is wrong they just make up some stupid excuse for overlooking the truth and keep right on rolling merrily along. I'm outta here.
They are also not going to do a line-by-line refutation of every news story in America: "This was wrong." "This was right." "We don't know about this." "This is partially true, but we can't reveal any more until we can declassify the intel." . . .
Oh, I see. So not only was it staged, but the "Marines" were stupid enough to draw attention to themselves by firing at nothing? It's amazing anyone made it out of there alive.
It was the mass media that ran with this angle.
Look at the situation again:
Initial Report: The military said they believed she attempted to resist capture. The media follows up with various questions about the details of her capture. The Army spokesman said they don't know the details, but that all Army personnel are trained to fight the enemy (duh!).
Five minutes after that, the media splash screen is "SAVING PRIVATE LYNCH" and equally-overdramatic graphics.
Two days later, the Army briefs the press that her injuries may have been sustained during the vehicle accident.
Go back and review the military briefings. You will find that the Army tried to provide accurate information throughout. The hype that came from the story became a life of its own, period.
Further, I am not really sure what you want? Did you want the army to come out and say, "Our soldiers are cowards; Pvt. Lynch couldn't even get a shot off because the weapons we use jammed?"
Is Jessica Lynch a coward? I don't think so.
Did she get a shot off? Apparently not.
Did her weapon jam? According to her, but we didn't find out about that until 9 months later.
So, I am not really sure how you wanted this to go down, but that's the way it went down.
So when you say that "let it stand" just because it was "good PR" is really not intellectually honest.
It was/is good PR that she was rescued. She was rescued by brave men of the Special Forces and Marines. She tried to fight, but her weapon jammed.
All of that's true. All of that's good PR. All of which the Army should let stand.
Was she Rambo? No, but the Army never portrayed her as such. The only people that let the "Rambo" image stand was the mass media, because that image was getting veiwership.
Put me down as a first-time basher, please.
Very well said, Crusader, I am with you.
Later, Dude. Your six months here was a joy.
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