Jessica Lynch Ends First Year of College

Yahooooooo! ^ | May 6, 2006 | Allison Barker

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Three years after her capture and dramatic nighttime rescue in the early days of the Iraq war made her an instant celebrity, Jessica Lynch yearns for the ordinary.

She's just finished her first year at West Virginia University, where she's become an anonymous college student on a campus of thousands.

"I think people recognize who I am; they just don't make it obvious," Lynch, 23, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

"That's good for me because it gives me the opportunity to blend in and not stick out and really experience the college life just like they are."

Lynch, who joined the Army at 18 to see the world and earn money for college, attends WVU on a state scholarship. She grew up wanting to be a kindergarten teacher, but abandoned that idea after taking one education class.

"I haven't really found my direction of where I'm headed right now with everything I've been through," she said.

She changed her major to journalism because of her experience with the media and spends Wednesdays working at the campus radio station. Still, she's not sure if journalism is in her future.

"I enjoy broadcasting and I know I want to do something with children," she said. "I'd really like to start a kids TV program here in West Virginia. Something for kids who are in the hospital or have cancer."

Lynch's 507th Army Maintenance Company convoy was in Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003, when it took a wrong turn and was attacked. Eleven American soldiers were killed and six were captured, including Lynch.

The former supply clerk suffered extensive injuries when her Humvee crashed during the firefight. Her videotaped rescue from Saddam Hospital by U.S. special forces nine days later transformed the soft-spoken woman into a hero.

She still has no feeling in her left leg and has to wear a brace to support her foot because of nerve damage. And Lynch says she still can't remember the events that filled the two hours after her convoy was hit.

"Right now, I have sort of this image of what could have happened," she said. "If I actually knew and it came back, I probably would have nightmares for the rest of my life."

Though she was once engaged to former Army Sgt. Ruben Contreras, she now has a new boyfriend in Parkersburg. She protects details about her private life, saying only she met him through family.

Lynch spends most of the week on campus, but often leaves town on weekends to visit her boyfriend or her parents.

"I want people to remember me as being a soldier who went over there and did my job fighting for our country, our freedom. Nothing special. ... I'm just a country girl at heart."

[Zhang Fei]

Is this the same David Hackworth who was screaming on a secure phone asking Carter for permission to withdraw after his Iran hostage mission went to hell in a handbasket?

I wouldn't be too hard on Charlie Beckwith. The guy was headed into a hornet's nest with a few dozen men, and no possibility of resupply or reinforcement. He was outnumbered and outgunned ten thousand to one. The only edge he had was surprise and speed. Even with surprise and speed, you still need a certain amount of basic redundancy. He needed whatever he needed and the outcome would have been a close run thing even if he had everything in place. With the problems encountered during the mission, he would have had difficulty emerging with all the hostages. It would have been irresponsible to send his men with less than he needed into what was effectively a borderline suicide mission anyway. Special Forces people aren't supermen. They can't carry unlimited amounts of ammo, and making faces at the enemy doesn't get them to keep their heads down. They're not bullet proof either, as the mess in Mogadishu showed.

[saradippity]

Please show me where she claimed repeated sodomy. The only time I heard things like that were from people on these threads who were salivating just thinking about her being brutalized by those nasty,ugly Iraqis.

I remember how refreshingly honest her father was. Badgered and pestered by reporters,who were just breathless waiting to hear him say that his daughter was raped and beaten and he was going to avenge her. Instead,he simply said he was going to Germany and he had no comment until he found out what actually happened. I recall thinking what a decent man he was.

When Jessica was able to comment,she too was very mild and it did seem that she was embarrassed about the initial lies about her heroism. Since she was unable to communicate,everything said about her was the product of many minds who had agendas. The government wanted a war hero and feminists wanted a female hero and the media wanted a storybook hero,she was hurt and captured and the men and women with agendas took over. What would any decent person do when they found out what had happened and that it was a pack of lies.

She did much better than most people,she was genuine and pretty quiet,I am sure that there were many from her state and home town that believed all the crap that others had written and went to great lengths to honor her,really what was she to do? Tell them that the war lovers and women fabricated a story that suited their purposes? That would have been the raw truth but she seemed to have the maturity to understand and try to keep people civil.

There was also something very strange about the Iraqi,who supposedly gave the military the info about where she was that allowed them to "save" her with great macho and drama. He and his family were over here practically within the week.

Just leave Jessica Lynch alone,everytime I see her maligned I look at it as a mark against the maligner rather than her.

I know your remark was not maligning her but I just decided this thread had too many nasty remarks about someone who just doesn't deserve them. Sorry,but she never said she was repeatedly sodomized,only people who couldn't possibly have known since she hadn't spoken,as I recall they told her that was what happened.

[Americanexpat]

Damn, I was a volunteer, I wish somebody told me I could have hid in a bunker during fire fights.

Of course we were too busy to dig one when the crap hit the fan.

[HairOfTheDog]

Excellent post and thank you for saying it! I'm glad to have clicked on the thread and read your remark first. Every word of it is spot on.

[Reagan 76]

You are probably correct regarding the brigades. All of these Guard/Reserve combat brigades that had to roll up there flags in the nineties would sure come in handy right now. Massachusetts alone saw four of them go away.

[taxcontrol]

The problem with Guard / Reserve brigades is their long term deploy-ability. Our military leaders have been trained to believe that they can fight and win a war in days / weeks. What has been left out of the equation is the rotational requirements to sustain long term operations. And that includes an stateside rotation frequent enough to keep the dissatisfaction and thus end of service departures low enough, that we can continue to recruit at a level to keep the force full.

To maintain such troop strength would require a larger force to distribute the rotational schedule across than what we currently have. I'm of the opinion that this nation will have to rapidly reach a decision soon.

1) Reduce the rotational schedule - this will appear to be in the form off a draw down in Iraq. Probably the preferred option.

2) Increase recruiting incentives to boost troop levels in shortage units in active / reserve / guard units

3) Live with (accept) a reduction in the guard / reserve staffing levels and thus reach a point where they are marginally deployable.

4) Change the rotation schedule so that active units are carrying more of the burden in Iraq

5) Decline to sustain troop levels in other areas of commitment (NATO, Asia Pac, etc)

6) Abandon the concept of an all volunteer army by attaching the possibility of guard / reserve duty to those that accept college grants or loans.

7) Implement a draft.

[Reagan 76]

I like number six. You'd have to make it a specific advantaged type of student loan. Even then however, with the Guard providing full tuition to state schools in many cases, they cannot meet the demand.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

"She grew up wanting to be a kindergarten teacher, but abandoned that idea after taking one education class."

I went through the entire K-12 English program at a college with a good reputation for its education program.

I think one source of weakness in the public-education system is the degree programs for education, whether undergraduate (certification) or advanced.

Academe is third-generation Marxism and has become the inbred offspring of a mutant progenitor. "Education" has become indoctrination and social engineering and pedagogy has become a failed attempt of letting the uneducated teach themselves through undeserved positive reinforcement (self esteem is more important than results).

Kudos to Jessica for spotting this early and getting out, if that's what happened.