Posted on 04/03/2003 3:03:29 AM PST by kattracks
Rescued U.S. soldier put up fierce fight - Wash Post
WASHINGTON, April 3 (Reuters) - Rescued U.S. soldier Jessica Lynch shot several Iraqi soldiers prior to her capture, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing U.S. officials.
The 19-year-old Private First Class continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her, one official told the newspaper.
"She was fighting to the death," the official was quoted as saying. "She did not want to be taken alive."
Lynch arrived in Germany early on Thursday for treatment at an American military hospital. She was held as a prisoner of war by Iraq for more than a week until U.S. special forces freed her on Tuesday.
Lynch, who has two broken legs and one broken arm, was with a U.S. Army maintenance convoy ambushed by Iraqi forces on March 23 in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya.
One official said Lynch was stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position, the newspaper said.
U.S. defense officials said they were aware of the report, but could not immediately confirm the details of Lynch's capture.
Officials told the newspaper that the precise sequence of events was still being determined and further information would emerge as Lynch is debriefed.
The report said the information about Lynch's ordeal was based on battlefield intelligence which officials said came from monitored communications and from Iraqi sources in whose reliability has yet to be assessed.
Lynch, from Palestine, West Virginia, arrived at the U.S. Ramstein air base in southwestern Germany early on Thursday aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane.
The special forces also recovered the bodies of two U.S. soldiers in the raid at the Saddam Hospital north of the Euphrates river which runs through Nassiriya.
Lynch was one of 15 soldiers listed missing, captured or killed when a 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company convoy made a wrong turn and came under attack from Iraqi tanks and fighters.
Five of the captives, but not Lynch, were shown on Iraqi television as well as the bloodied bodies of up to eight men, prompting President George W. Bush to warn that anybody mistreating U.S. prisoners would be punished as "war criminals.
04/03/03 05:57 ET
That's fine. But I'm racking my brain trying to figure out how to verify anything that comes to me via the FreeRepublic mail system. Help me out here.
Being a jerk is a crime now?
Slippery slope...slippery slope
/warning
But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Still waiting. Still need tips on verification of a freepmail.
You know the socialist media are rabid for women in combat; it's a major point in the socialist cause.
And yet, it appears to me that you have an agenda of your own:
This lady should be honored for her support service, in spite of her being placed much too close to the front lines.
I'd like to set the predetermined bias aside, and just see what the actual TRUTH of the story is.
So is she a soldier or a "little girl," a "tough little cookie?"
She apparently fought bravely and hard to save her life, the same as many nameless other soldiers in Iraq have done. But patronizing her serves to puff up her circumstances beyond all objective measures.
The soldiers who launched a daring raid to save her placed their skins on the line to get it done. Do we say, "those little boys are ferocious little sweethearts"? No, we don't even know--or care--who they are. Why? Because this is considered routine for men. Yet your comment reflects an enduring wisdom, which is this: no matter how well PFC Lynch fought, no matter how bravely she endured torture, her response and circustances are unique to her and should not be allowed to make the argument that women in general should be in combat.
One should never forget that the liberal press hates this war and all the men associated with it. PFC Lynch is front-page positive news for the liberal press this morning not because she apparently shot a bunch of Iraqis (there are thousands of men who have done and are doing the same thing, and they get scant coverage let alone positive coverage) but because she is a woman and that fact sets the liberals' feminazi glands a' salivating.
Unfortunately, PFC Lynch will now become the centerpiece of a renewed feminazi strategy to place women in front-line combat positions. And many FReepers will have cheered that deadly and counterproductive result home.
I believe PFC Lynch should be honored for her amazing personal bravery and grit--as should the soldiers who rescued her. A Bronze Star, minimum. It's an inspirational, patriotic, heart-warming story for the ages. What I regret is the larger political weapon liberals are fashioning her story into with the able emotion-driven assistance of conservatives who ought to know better.
On a lighter note, I read somewhere about the Marines (I think) rules for gunfighting. One of them went something along these lines:
You may be killed with your own weapon. But the enemy should have to beat you to death with it, because you will have already expended all you ammo.
I would, too.
I'd say I most certainly do have an agenda. I simply want women out of danger and harm's way. I want to release the country from expensive and unworkable socialist policies. I want a final end to all taint of socialism at the federal and state levels, and women in harm's way as policy is one of the important, if not the most important, cause of that system.
Sky is falling...Sky is falling. :)
No need for the mild panic. The putz was insulting, abusive, and disruptive. All that in 2 posts. He/she/it should have been banned and I see no problem with it.
Weep not for the moron, DCPatriot. No loss with banning such a troll, no "slippery slope", no reason NOT to ban the slime.
If so, may he also decorate the men who rescued her, and all her dead fellow-soldiers whose stories of bravery and heroism have been left untold and ignored.
A trifle premature to make the arguement liberals will use this to push their "women at the pointy end of the spear" agenda. We are talking the Bush administration, not the touchy feely Clinton "ah feel your pain" era. The Bush administration will put no pressure on the military to advance the feminist liberal agenda ... guaranteed.
I bet you're right. I bet she'll be the guest of honor at receptions hosted by Hillary, Boxer, Feinstein, Pelosi, and Kennedy inside of two months.
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