Posted on 11/08/2003 6:48:09 AM PST by KQQL
US woman soldier who shot to fame after being taken prisoner during the Iraq war has accused the military of using her for propaganda purposes.
A video of US commandos carrying a badly injured Private Jessica Lynch from a Nasiriya hospital was released at the height of the conflict.
But the 20-year-old criticised the release of false information about her capture by Iraqi forces.
She also said there was no reason for her rescue to be filmed.
In her first interview about what happened to her, the former prisoner-of-war told ABC television that medical reports indicated that she had been raped.
They used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff. It's wrong.
She said she had no recollection of the attack. "Even just the thinking about that, that's too painful," she told interviewer Diane Sawyer.
Miss Lynch, who was serving as an Army supply clerk, suffered broken bones and other injuries when her convoy was ambushed after taking a wrong turn near the Iraqi town of Nasiriya on 23 March.
The Pentagon initially put out the story that Private Lynch - a slight woman who was just 19 at the time - had been wounded by Iraqi gunfire but had kept fighting until her ammunition ran out.
But she told Sawyer that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that her gun had jammed during the chaos.
"I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do," she said.
"I did not shoot - not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees - that's the last thing I remember."
Initial reports also suggested that Miss Lynch had been abused after she came round in the hospital. She says that again was untrue - there was no mistreatment, and one nurse used to sing to her.
She said she was grateful to the American special forces team which rescued her but, asked whether the Pentagon's subsequent portrayal of her rescue bothered her, she said: "Yes, it does. They used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff. It's wrong."
Injuries
Miss Lynch was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Prisoner of War medals while still in hospital in Washington DC.
Months later, she is receiving treatment for her extensive injuries.
Earlier this week, it emerged that medical evidence suggested that Miss Lynch had been raped during her capture.
The assault was revealed in extracts from Miss Lynch's authorised biography - I am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story - to be released by publisher Alfred A Knopf on Tuesday.
And despite that, she learned to tell the truth, not go along with an official lie.
You're the one acting like Clinton, not Private Lynch.
Oh come on, she could have spent 10 minutes with the Iraqi doctor who helped save her and take a freakin picture.
End of story, end of controversy, beginning of Jessica Lynch going back into the obscurity that she covets, or does she?
You're the one acting like Clinton, not Private Lynch
Please wacky, provide the link to the "official" lie. You must know the url of the official Penatgon take on the Jessica Lynch story.
You can't, but what the hey someday you may learn not to be pulled around by the nose by the media.
Training women for combat with physically stronger men necessarily lowers the standards for training overall. This leads to a weaker military and higher casualty rates. (In a dangerous combat situation, for example, the typical woman needs to be only slightly slower than the typical man for a near-miss to become a hit.)
Permitting women to fight our battles also inverts the natural order of masculine men protecting feminine women. Civilian men are, in effect, forced to hide behind skirts during conflicts and women are forced to deny and suppress their feminity in order to get by in an inherently masculine profession.
All the awards and fawning media publicity designed to hype a pretty casualty of war and promote the feminist neuter agenda cannot change this fundamental truth. For more information and to sign a petition that calls for Bush to roll back Clinton policies that push women into combat, please go to: Americans for the Military
BTW, I found out about this petition at the Concerned Women for America homepage.
I seriously doubt that ABC money had anything to do with it. Most freepers are just grabbing at straws trying to discredit her. Lynch was honest about the military lies and that is driving many into making themselves look foolish trying to trash her.
Richard W.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0603/17lynchordeal.html
From the article at the above link: "The unit fell behind as the enormous wrecking tractors and cargo trailers -- equipment to haul other giant Army vehicles and supplies -- tried to adjust to the division's changing pace."
This is only a small part of a long interesting article based on the following:
Booth reported from Nasiriyah, interviewing Iraqi doctors and nurses in the hospitals where Lynch was treated, and Iraqi citizens who witnessed elements of the initial capture. Priest and Schmidt reported from Washington, interviewing military and intelligence officials with detailed knowledge of Lynch's capture and rescue, as well as officials close to the Lynch family.
Really Richard W.? I would beg to differ, but that is your right as an American to think that a 20 year old with a million dollars thrown on her lap would not do as she is told(probably cajoled) by a Stephanopolis run ABC news.
YOu seem a little ill-informed. He was a lawyer, not her doctor.
Don't you think that if she could have spent 10 minutes with the guy, when he is in her own hometown(Palestine, WV, ain't Manhattan) that the controversy would not be here right now.
JMO, but I beleive her to be ungreatful and self-centered.
Hope she exits the next ramp off the Babs Streisnd diva interstate.
And that means what? Did he or didn't he point Jessica's rescuers in the correct direction to find her.
(My Bold)
Accusing the military of lying about something during a time of war is a serious thing to do. If the military is indeed lying about something important during a time of war, then it IS productive to identify that lie, so that corrections can be made. If the military is NOT lying about something during a time of war then a false accusation about such becomes a tool of the enemy.
Give me one example of a named quoted pentagon spokeman that lied about the Jessica thingy . I'll be back later...
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