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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 04/13/2003 9:53:07 AM PDT by george wythe
America shared his joy at her rescue and, as the days passed, her speedy recovery. Within a week of the daring raid Lynch had undergone surgery to set her broken bones — including fractures in both legs, her right arm, ankle and foot, and damage to her spine — and was once again eating small servings of her favorite foods: turkey, french fries and steamed carrots. Her doctors now say they are certain some of her injuries — which went untreated for her nine days in captivity, leading to infection — were caused by gunshots. "The injuries are open fractures, which is to say the bone comes through the skin," says Landstuhl spokesman Capt. Norris Jones, who adds that an absence of bullets or metal shards initially led doctors to assume there were no gunshot wounds. It was only in a subsequent operation to repair the fractures that medics speculated they had been caused by bullets.
Whether she was shot in captivity or earlier, during the battle in which she was captured, or even through friendly fire, is still uncertain. But a Capitol Hill source privy to intelligence briefings about her condition tells PEOPLE that some of her wounds were the result of extensive torture. "Those people — the Iraqi captors — were barbaric," says the source. "I have no doubt that with her injuries, and with what they had planned for her, she was going to die." Her tormentors apparently met their match in Wirt County Fair's 2000 Miss Congeniality. Already sitting up in a chair for four hours at a stretch and undergoing physical, occupational and psychological therapy, the 19-year-old could be back in the States for ongoing treatment at D.C.'s Walter Reed Army Medical Center in a matter of days.
She has many to thank for her survival, among them a 32-year-old lawyer named Mohammed who had seen Lynch on a chance visit to Nasiriya's six-story Saddam Hussein Hospital, where his wife worked as a nurse. When he asked why there was so much security around, a doctor friend told him of the American woman prisoner and took him to her room. Peering through an internal window, Mohammed (whose last name hasn't been disclosed for security reasons) says he saw a black-uniformed officer whom others addressed as the Colonel slap the woman across the face. "The Colonel wanted a certain reaction out of Jessica, and he didn't get what he wanted," says a Pentagon intelligence officer familiar with Mohammed's account. Horrified by what he had witnessed and fearing for his own family's safety, Mohammed sent his wife and 6-year-old daughter to stay with a relative and walked six miles outside of town to tell U.S. GIs where Lynch was being held. "My heart cut," says Mohammed, whose story has been confirmed by the Pentagon. "A person, no matter his nationality, is a human being. It was very important that I save Jessica's life." He says he helped stop doctors who were considering amputating Lynch's wounded right foot at the hospital, where four guards with AK-47 machine guns stood outside her room. He returned to the building twice to draw detailed maps of the layout and possible escape routes for the Americans. He and his family were taken to Marine combat headquarters to escape possible reprisals.
(Excerpt) Read more at people.aol.com ...
Nevertheless, I will continue to pray for them, since I know they suffered much more than sleep and food deprivation.
As this article says, those Iraqi captors were vicious animals.
If they tortured a teenage girl, I cannot imagine their barbaric treatment to our POWs.
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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You link says I have to buy people magazine or subscribe to AOL to see it.
Shudder at the thought.
Nevertheless, I will post the whole article on this message for those of you who cannot access the link:
Saved from Danger
They nearly lost 16 soldiers. Around midnight on April 1 a few dozen Special Operations "doorkickers" piled into Black Hawk helicopters and headed for Nasiriya. The southern Iraqi city was dark, lit only by scattered fires and the generator-powered lights of the Saddam Hussein Hospital, where Pfc. Jessica Lynch lay gravely injured. Suddenly one of the helicopters floundered, its landing gear snagged on the guy wire of a transmission tower. "The wire threw it into a 25-degree right roll and tossed the passengers around before the cable finally broke," says a colonel who was there. The pilot righted the chopper free and the team landed safely. Says the colonel: "God smiled on us that night."
He also smiled on Jessica Lynch. While hundreds of Marines created a diversion south of the hospital with artillery and gunfire, the U.S. soldiers, wearing night-vision goggles, quickly found Lynch's second-floor room. "Jessica Lynch, we're United States soldiers and we're here to protect you and take you home," said the first man in. Replied a startled Lynch: "I'm an American soldier too." During the short helicopter flight to an airstrip at a secret location, Lynch clutched the hand of a doctor: "Please don't let anyone leave me," she said. Back at the hospital, an Iraqi doctor led remaining U.S. troops to an area of shallow graves. Digging with their hands, they recovered the bodies of eight U.S. troops, including Lynch's former tentmate Lori Piestewa, the war's first female casualty.
For Jessica, though, safety was at hand. By the time she boarded a jet in Kuwait for the eight-hour flight to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, she was upbeat and confident. "I'm not sure I could go through what she's gone through," says Air Force Capt. Shean Galvin, a member of the crew of 30 medics, soldiers and at least one friend from her unit who traveled with her. "I'm 6' 2", 200 lbs. She's just a little thing. She must be tough as nails." Back at his base, Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joe Morehead wrote an e-mail to his mother in Pennsylvania: "Awesome Victory!!! I just wanted to let you know that we are finally war heroes. We pulled out the POW last night. Makes me feel as if it was all worth it."
America shared his joy at her rescue and, as the days passed, her speedy recovery. Within a week of the daring raid Lynch had undergone surgery to set her broken bones — including fractures in both legs, her right arm, ankle and foot, and damage to her spine — and was once again eating small servings of her favorite foods: turkey, french fries and steamed carrots. Her doctors now say they are certain some of her injuries — which went untreated for her nine days in captivity, leading to infection — were caused by gunshots. "The injuries are open fractures, which is to say the bone comes through the skin," says Landstuhl spokesman Capt. Norris Jones, who adds that an absence of bullets or metal shards initially led doctors to assume there were no gunshot wounds. It was only in a subsequent operation to repair the fractures that medics speculated they had been caused by bullets. Whether she was shot in captivity or earlier, during the battle in which she was captured, or even through friendly fire, is still uncertain. But a Capitol Hill source privy to intelligence briefings about her condition tells PEOPLE that some of her wounds were the result of extensive torture. "Those people — the Iraqi captors — were barbaric," says the source. "I have no doubt that with her injuries, and with what they had planned for her, she was going to die." Her tormentors apparently met their match in Wirt County Fair's 2000 Miss Congeniality. Already sitting up in a chair for four hours at a stretch and undergoing physical, occupational and psychological therapy, the 19-year-old could be back in the States for ongoing treatment at D.C.'s Walter Reed Army Medical Center in a matter of days.
She has many to thank for her survival, among them a 32-year-old lawyer named Mohammed who had seen Lynch on a chance visit to Nasiriya's six-story Saddam Hussein Hospital, where his wife worked as a nurse. When he asked why there was so much security around, a doctor friend told him of the American woman prisoner and took him to her room. Peering through an internal window, Mohammed (whose last name hasn't been disclosed for security reasons) says he saw a black-uniformed officer whom others addressed as the Colonel slap the woman across the face. "The Colonel wanted a certain reaction out of Jessica, and he didn't get what he wanted," says a Pentagon intelligence officer familiar with Mohammed's account. Horrified by what he had witnessed and fearing for his own family's safety, Mohammed sent his wife and 6-year-old daughter to stay with a relative and walked six miles outside of town to tell U.S. GIs where Lynch was being held. "My heart cut," says Mohammed, whose story has been confirmed by the Pentagon. "A person, no matter his nationality, is a human being. It was very important that I save Jessica's life." He says he helped stop doctors who were considering amputating Lynch's wounded right foot at the hospital, where four guards with AK-47 machine guns stood outside her room. He returned to the building twice to draw detailed maps of the layout and possible escape routes for the Americans. He and his family were taken to Marine combat headquarters to escape possible reprisals.
Other kind souls also spoke up. Marine Staff Sgt. Kevin Ellicott was distributing food on the side of a highway leading to Nasiriya March 31 when he was approached by an Iraqi man who said, "She is still in the hospital. They are torturing her. You have to help her!" As proof, the man handed the Marine two letters in blue ink apparently written by Lynch to a friend some time before her unit, the 507th Maintenance Company, was ambushed after making a wrong turn in Nasiriya on March 23.
Back home on the other side of the world, in tiny Palestine, W.Va., Lynch's family and friends heralded the news of her rescue with fireworks and a celebration that will probably continue well beyond her return. Nobody was surprised to hear Lynch's plucky nature had pulled her through. "That's my Jessi," says Angel Joy, one of many cousins in the close-knit town tucked into the mountains. Growing up, says Joy, 25, a nursing clerk, "We lived in the woods. We climbed trees and swung from vines. We packed picnics, and you wouldn't see us for the rest of the day." Part tomboy, part wannabe beauty queen, Lynch played with Barbies and took pride in her appearance. "She had her moments when she liked to look real nice. She'd wear those small-waisted dresses that I can't wear," says her sister Brandi Lynch, 17, who shared a bunk bed with Jessica in the family's three-bedroom A-frame house nestled between two hills.
She could also be stubborn. "If someone told her she couldn't do something," says her dad, Gregory Sr., 43, a self-employed trucker, "she'd do it just to show them." She was especially competitive with her brother, Greg Jr., 21, challenging him to push-up contests and other tests of strength. In the summer of 2001 Army recruiter Staff Sgt. James Grady stopped by the house at Brandi's request. Both Gregory Jr., who is on emergency leave from the Army, and Jessica signed up after graduating from Wirt County High School, where Jessica was an enthusiastic, if not very effective, right fielder on the varsity softball team. "She was very intrigued about seeing the world," says Grady, 29. She traveled to Mexico, Germany and Kuwait and even struck up a relationship with a soldier from another unit (though friends in the Army decline to name him or give away any details). All the while, she stayed true to her desire to one day be a teacher, like her friend and former kindergarten teacher Linda Davies. Says Davies: "She hasn't changed one bit."
Still, Lynch's parents needed to see that for themselves. At first, short phone conversations with Jessica from her hospital bed were enough. "I can't wait to wash my hair," mom Dee, 40, recalls her saying in one chat. "Bring me some clothes." But on the evening of April 4, when a doctor from the hospital told them she had been placed in intensive care with a fever of 104 degrees, Jessica's parents asked themselves whether they should be at her side. When the doctor called back a few minutes later to say her fever had fallen two degrees, says Judy Kyer, a family friend who was over at the time, the Lynches "asked if it would be good for Jessi for them to come, and he said, 'Yes, she's been asking for her mother.' That's all they needed."
Two days later they arrived at her bedside bearing gifts: summer blouses to fit over the cast on her right arm, a bag of hometown newspapers, a teddy bear — and the curling iron that Jessica Lynch calls her magic wand. "Hi, baby! How ya doin?' " asked Gregory, as he approached her bed. "Fine!" came her reply. That day Jessica underwent her third and final operation, a 30-minute procedure to clean up her wounds. She had already undergone a five-hour operation to repair a slipped vertebra putting pressure on her spinal column, orthopedic surgery to repair her broken bones, and met with psychologists from the Pentagon's Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion team. "This is an emotional time. Memories can be distorted," says psychologist Robert Roland, a professor at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces who has counseled Gulf War POWs, but is not directly involved with Jessica's case. "Sometimes they don't come immediately. If there is perishable information about captured comrades, they'll want to find out right away. In her case, she could tell them who she saw alive and help them account for missing soldiers."
Certainly, Lynch was keenly aware of her fallen comrades — Sgt. George Buggs, 31, Master Sgt. Robert Dowdy, 38, Pvt. Ruben Estrella-Soto, 18, Spc. James Kiehl, 22, Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata, 35, Pvt. Brandon Sloan, 19, Sgt. Donald Walters, 33, and Piestewa. "She's real concerned for them," says her brother. "But she's not in a state where she really wants to talk much about that." Her family are not pushing her to. Nor are they overwhelming her with information like the celebrity she has become at home, and the scholarship and film offers that have poured in. Says her dad: "We're just letting her take her time."
Comfortably ensconced in a small suite on the base at Landstuhl, the Lynches say they will stay as long as Jessica needs them. Whether or not she will return to active service when she recovers remains an open question. In the meantime, friends and relatives are building a handicapped-accessible addition to the family house for Jessica, although probably not in time for her 20th-birthday celebration on April 26. Other gifts to come: laser surgery to correct her astigmatism and possibly a new car. That, and a return to status quo. "She's wanting to get up on her feet," says Gregory Jr. "And that's what we want to see. We want to see her just get back to normal."
Thirteen
. . .
Nineteen
Sorry for my confusion
Can you provide me with a link to the official age bracket for teenagers?
Much of the world tinks of the US as a paper tiger. If the "Colonel" is found, he needs to be given a FAIR military trial in the field. *IF* found guilty, he needs to be stood up against a wall and shot.
ROFLOL
They will.
Lynch's spinal wounds worry me, since she had trouble feeling her legs.
But again, Iraqis have been tortured themselves by other Iraqis loyal to Saddam, so what else is new there?
What a contrast between this treatment and the way we treat Iraqi POWs.
Our soldiers have even shared their own water and packaged meals with the Iraqis immediately after taken Iraqi prisoners.
Sometimes I feel the way you described, the older I get, the more college freshmen look like "kids."
My mother told that the day a cop stops you, and you wonder what a "kid" is doing driving a police car, you know you are getting old :-)
On the other hand, General Franks today was warmly referring his troops as youngsters--using that description all the way up to 3 star generals.
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