POW Jessica was tortured

New York Daily News ^ | 4/03/02 | MAKI BECKER

[kattracks]

Tip from Iraqi led to hospital room

Jessica was being tortured.

That was the urgent word from an Iraqi man who alerted U.S. troops where to find Pfc. Jessica Lynch - and her injuries seem to bear out the allegation.

Lynch, who was flown to a military hospital in Germany yesterday, had her legs broken, one arm broken and at least one bullet wound, officials said.

The 19-year-old West Virginia private was able to call her parents yesterday for the first time since her rescue Tuesday. She was in good spirits but very hungry, her parents told CNN.

The rescue of Lynch, who was driving a water truck when she went missing after a March 23 ambush in Nassiriya, had added urgency when one of two tips to Americans said she was in danger.

One tip came when an English-speaking Iraqi man approached NBC reporter Kerry Sanders to tell him about the soldier being held captive.

"Please make sure the people in charge know that she's being tortured," he told Sanders.

Belying her country-girl smile and petite 5-foot-5 frame, Lynch put up a Rambo-worthy fight when her unit, the Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Co., came under attack, according to a new report.

Lynch opened fire on the Iraqi assailants, picking them off one by one until she ran out of ammunition, according to today's Washington Post.

She continued shooting - even after she was shot and stabbed and her unit members were killed all around her.

"She was fighting to the death," a U.S. official told The Post. "She did not want to be taken alive."

Yesterday, when Lynch was plucked from Saddam Hospital, Special Forces troops found a soldier in pain.

Her broken bones are a sure sign of torture, said Amy Waters Yarsinske, an ex-Navy intelligence officer and an expert on POW treatment.

"It's awfully hard to break both legs and an arm in a truck accident," Yarsinske said.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's thugs are known to use steel bars to bash their prisoners' limbs, she said.

"In the first gulf action, they tried breaking their [captured U.S. airmen's] legs with steel bars," Yarsinske said.

Another clue that Lynch and other POWs were being tortured came Friday, when Marines raided a hospital near Nassiriya where other members of Lynch's unit were videotaped and later shown on Iraqi TV. Marines found at least one shredded woman's uniform spattered with blood and the name patch torn off. In addition to Lynch, two other female soldiers went missing after the ambush.

In one hospital room, Marines discovered a car battery next to a bed - a possible electrical shock torture chamber.

During the last Persian Gulf War, Iraqis attached wires to one American POW's jaw and shocked him, Yarsinske said.

An Iraqi pharmacist who works at Saddam Hospital told Britain's Sky TV he treated Lynch's leg injuries. He added: "Every day I saw her crying about wanting to go home."

The pharmacist, who gave his name only as Imad, said Lynch knew U.S. troops were on the other side of the Euphrates River, and "kept wondering if the American Army were coming to save her."

Lynch's hometown of Palestine, W.Va., continued its celebration of her recovery yesterday.

Her brother, Gregory Jr., who is also in the Army, told CNN his sister sounded "disoriented" when she phoned home. "Her voice was crackly and low. She sounded like she was sick."

West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise stopped by the Lynch's home yesterday and told her parents that their daughter, who had joined the Army to pay for college so she could become a kindergarten teacher, would not have to worry about tuition.

"There will be a full scholarship for her whenever she wants to go for college," he promised.

With News Wire Services

[philman_36]

I would blame the culture, the abortion propaganda and the medical people more than the girl who might choose an abortion.
The culture? Sounds like a petri dish experiment or a yeast infection. (I get your point...just kidding)
Think about it though...cult/ure...
A subset of "society"...(Webster's) 5 a : the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group c : the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a company or corporation
Well, the aborters are "a group" all right...some might even consider them to be, in actuality, a cult...(great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work) I can already hear the bowel "movement" jokes swirling around in my skull...
Can't pass anything on to someone unborn. So much for "transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations". Sorry to get so technical on you.

[from occupied ga]

A little common sense tells me that she has a female body--a slight one at that--and females have quite a bit less muscle mass than men. ...........

In short no, you're just expressing your opinion, and we all know that opinions are like a certain body part. Everyone has one, but they are best not discussed in polite company.

[Kevin Curry]

In short no, you're just expressing your opinion

There are well-reasoned opinions based in fact, and their are the kind of opinions you are alluding to, which have all the intelligent content of air being forced out of a whoopee cushion. Motherbear's opinion about the relative lack of muscle mass in a woman is of the first kind; the emotion-laden swoonings of the fools tossing the word "hero" around so carelessly in this case are clearly of the second kind.

And that's a fact.

[from occupied ga]

And that's a fact.

In your opinion.

[Sci Fi Guy]

Symbolically, its a glorious picture to present to the Islamofascists. Here is a little bitty thing, a cutie, that gave battle bravely as a warrior, took a lot of punishment, and survived. How humiliating is that the the Iraqi military? Did that put some chinks in the theology of Islamofascism, if after all their heartfelt supplications to Allah they got beaten so severely by armies that used teenaged girls as warriors?

Just for clarification about seeming to be weak. I think that most arab countries see a large number of females in the service as a sign we have a shortage of men willing to fight. And therefore are more likely act against us.

I don't see what you seem to. How can they be humilated for taking US soldiers as prisoners? They would consider the ambush a victory, however small it might be.

Any humilation would be that our elite (all male) special ops troops rescued one of our pows. I do think that they will be humilated when we win, because once again non-Muslims beat arab Muslims.

[ought-six]

"The 20-year-old Marine reservist, called to active duty, refuses to serve in the Iraqi conflict, claiming conscientous objector status. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)"

This guy's a puke. He full well knows what serving in the military is all about, moreso since there is no longer a draft. And especially in the Marine Corps! If he had qualms about killing, he could have requested (and he would have received) a medical position, but it wouldn't have been in the Marines (the Marines use Navy corpsmen). And he had to have known that. Thus, this tells me he is a coward.

[mdmathis6]

No...I don't believe this country should know the gritty details....I was reacting to other posts that had begun to speculate on the possibilities and what of the ramifications of this and that..ect...ect! I say leave the gal alone!

[BradyLS]

PFC Lynch is one of many new heroes this nation acquired when the 507th was ambushed. I hope that we recover her comrades very soon. The drive that kept them fighting during the ambush, their perseverance as prisoners, and their faith that they would not be forgotten by their fellow servicemen are all admirable qualities. I WANT A DRINK FROM THAT WELL.

[ZULU]

This phoney b@stard should be sued by the Federal Government for recovery of all training expenses, then jailed for desertion.

[ZULU]

I agree with you totally. Physiologically and psychologically, women are not suited for combat positions.

All things being equal, a normal woman simply can't develop the same muscle mass and bone density as a male. Women are not natural born killers, most men are - its a product of millenia of fighting each other and animals for their skin and flesh. No great military power in history ever employed women in their militray establishment.

(Were can I contribute to buy a burkha for a liberal?? I hope the ones you are buying are exceptionally hot with no opportunity for sound to be emitted from the face piece!)

[carenot]

If I were raped, the baby would still be my baby. I would not kill my baby.

If my daughter were raped, the baby would still be my grandchild.

[philman_36]

If I were raped, the baby would still be my baby. I would not kill my baby.
And those are your decisions. You, and you alone, make that decision.
In the end nobody can make that call for you.
If my daughter were raped, the baby would still be my grandchild.
Will you make the decision for your daughter? Probably not, but you would have a big input into her own final decision.

[LurkerNoMore!]

Elizabeth Smart must appreciate the breather she's getting on FR.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Hopefully she'll never know how badly she was savaged here.