Posted on 04/05/2003 1:18:38 AM PST by kattracks
Pfc. Jessica Lynch was beaten more severely than first reports indicated, doctors said yesterday.Besides two broken legs and a broken arm, the 19-year-old Army truck driver suffered fractures to her right foot, right ankle and a disk in her spine, and had a gash on her head.
Lynch underwent spinal surgery Thursday to repair the fractured disk that had been pressing painfully on a nerve, doctors at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany reported yesterday.
"The prognosis for her recovery is excellent," said Col. David Rubenstein, the medical center commander.
Officials have refused to say why so many of Lynch's bones were broken, but it's likely she was tortured. An Iraqi man who told the Americans where to find her urged the troops to hurry, saying she was being tortured. He later described a scene where the helpless woman was being slapped by a black-clad member of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's thuggish Fedayeen.
Despite her ordeal, Lynch was in good spirits, asking for turkey, a pair of glasses and a newspaper from her hometown of Palestine, W.Va.
"Her emotional state is extremely good - she's jovial, she's talking with staff," Rubenstein said. He said she was particularly cheered by the pink casts she requested.
She will need "extensive rehabilitative services," he continued, but was expected to recover completely.
She's "a daughter any parent would be proud of," he added.
A friend from her unit is with her and has spoken by telephone with her family, Rubenstein said.
The military also accommodated a request from Lynch, who was being fed intravenously, for solid foods. From her list of favorites, cooks in the hospital kitchen delivered an order of turkey, apple sauce and steamed carrots.
The private has no television in her hospital room, on Rubenstein's orders. And Lynch's father back in the U.S. confirmed that doctors have asked him not to discuss her ordeal with her.
"We will answer her questions when she asks them," Rubenstein said.
Nine of 11 bodies discovered in the raid that freed Lynch are believed to be those of American soldiers. Those bodies were transported yesterday to Dover, Del.
With News Wire Services
I'm quite sure I heard it reported Friday evening that she had been shot in both legs and one arm, explaining those fractures.
I suspect the jewels of someone that would do this are too small to work with.
Has anyone heard anything about Shoshana? I saw her family on TV yesterday and it was just heart wrenching.
The death of the young Indian girl infuriates me. I agree with those that want to keep females as far from combat as possible. The fact that we do not speaks volumes about the depths to which our culture has sunk since the sixties.
Folks - there is a reason she was spared.
Without women, America in no way shape or form would have ever won any of the wars she has ever fought, PERIOD!
But I want to go on record that women have no place in combat roles.
Again, I thank God she has been spared.
But placing women in combat roles gives the enemy the unique psychological weapon of posessing our women soldiers with the implied intent of imposing on them torture and rape not normally associated with the capture of a male POW.
I know this is not politically correct, but women should be taken out of combat roles.
Jessica fought off the enemey bravely, with distinction and honor and I take ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from her heroic deeds.
There are countless roles women can play in contributing to military readiness and succes every bit as critical as combat roles - that is where we should post our women soldiers.
PC flame suit firmly suited up.
Don't kid yourself, though, mombonn. We are especially joyful because a young American woman has been delivered from what we all know was a unfathomable fate.
We do not ever need to see that again. Women can be - all they can be - as a Carrier Flight Boss or a Falcon Flight Wing Crew Chief, or as a JSTAR Captain or a Four Star General sitting at General Franks right hand. She can be the President's most trusted adviser from the NSC, helping him work through the diplomatic/military morass. She can be my President and my trusted Commander in Chief.
I do not want ANY women, going forward, to be put in a position where they ... INDEED ALL OF US ... are at the mercy of rapists, sadists and insane and violent Third World sociopaths. That's who we are going to be hooking up with, going forward.
Having women engaged in the chaos of brutal violence in a battle zone is nothing but trouble. It's bad for her, it's bad for the guys who are fighting to protect their own lives in pursuit of the mission, and it's bad for AMERICAN interests.
That's my point. It's no slur on Pfc Lynch's competence or courage. There is no single battle slot a female is so fit to serve that will ever trump that slot being served by a less qualified man whose death, capture or severe injury would have a less deleterious effect on the mission at hand, the propaganda leverage of the enemy AND the vital "war" for a solid public support, emotional morale and fundamental confidence back home.
The fact of the matter is, mombonn, that female chopper pilot who was taken prisoner in Desert Storm withheld any disclosure of the abusive rape and sexual violation she suffered at the hands of her Iraqi captors. Why would she not share this, perhaps she was emotionally distraught? No, she held this information back because she KNEW that this disclosure would have scuttled any authorization of female access to the battle zone. She was an advocate for women in combat. How lovely. That's the political b.s. around this stuff, mombonn, that is Clinton era crap all the way.
From the beginning, the Lads have been targeting enemy 'bad guy buildings' with artillery, airstrikes and raids (eg the attack on the Ba'ath party HQ a week or so ago). They've also been winkling out Fayadeen forces by running probing raids into Basra with Warriors and Challengers and simply killing anything that fires at them.
Hardly 'mucking around', methinks.
It will take years to scrub the PC mindset legacy from 8 years of Clintonian hell.
Many left in droves from the military from '92 to '02 because they could not stomach any more of his damning morale-busting liberal and demoralizing social reform policies.
Since Clinton was the CINC, he used every ounce of that position to set the U.S. military aside as his own personal political and social laboratory - the military were social program guinea pigs.
Let's hope those "reforms" can be corrected - and soon!
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