Posted on 08/27/2003 5:54:19 PM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Jessica Lynch, the badly injured U.S. Army private and prisoner of war who was retrieved from an Iraqi hospital by American commandos, has been honorably discharged from the military, paving the way for her to tell her story directly to the public."She's been medically retired" due to disability from injuries, Beverly Chidel, a spokeswoman at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, told Reuters.
Publishing sources told Reuters her discharge will allow Lynch, who became a controversial symbol of American patriotism during the war, to seal a lucrative publishing deal to tell her story and that her authorized biography could be on bookstore shelves within months.
Chidel said that Lynch was honorably discharged last Friday after returning to the medical center from a month's leave and would be eligible for future medical treatment at military hospitals even though she did not serve the 20 years normally required for military retirement.
Lynch was given a hero's welcome when she returned to her hometown of Palestine, West Virginia, on July 22. But the full details of her story have yet to be told since Lynch said she suffered a loss of memory after her capture.
Lynch was precluding from selling her story while on active duty but Publishers Weekly Editorial Director John Baker said she could now ink a deal within days. Publishers Alfred A. Knopf, Doubleday and Simon & Schuster had already made bids to produce her authorized biography, he said.
"Every month that passes before this book's publication the less of a story this is," Baker said, adding that a deal could be signed within days.
Literary sources said the leading contender to publish Lynch's story was Random House's Knopf imprint, which has proposed a book authored by Rick Bragg. The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter resigned from The New York Times earlier this year after allegations that he relied too heavily on the work of a freelancer in a story published under his byline.
Spokesmen for the three publishing houses either declined comment or could not immediately be reached.
The 20-year-old supply clerk was captured by Iraqi forces on March 23 near the city of Nassiriya. Eleven other U.S. soldiers were killed and nine wounded in the incident.
Lynch was rescued by U.S. commandos on April 1 from a hospital where she had received care from Iraqi medical personnel.
One earlier media report quoted unnamed U.S. officials saying she fought fiercely before being captured. But Army investigators later concluded that Lynch was injured when her Humvee crashed into another vehicle in the convoy after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Their report said a tired company commander misread his assigned route and that the unit took a wrong turn and became separated from a convoy of nearly 600 other vehicles sweeping north from the Kuwait border.
Lynch's lawyer, Stephen Goodwin, told Reuters by telephone from Charleston, West Virginia, that she was continuing her rehabilitation on an out-patient basis in West Virginia.
Lynch was awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War medals.
(additional reporting by Arthur Spiegelman in Los Angeles)
08/27/03 20:13 ET
Any chance this was a butter-bar with a compass and a map?
/john
When did she become contrversial ?
It don't take much of an imagination to think of the hell
this young lady has been subjected to.
I will tell them to back off. I will say well done
young lady, thanks for your service.
It was a captain, with a map, compass and GPS...
While the after action report contains many heroic deeds by soldiers in the convoy, their is no mention of Lynch firing a shot. She sustained her injuries when the HMMWV she was a back seat paassenger in rear-ended another truck in the convoy... she was lucky... everyone else in her vehicle was KIA.
No offense directed toward her, BUT: there were others who experienced worse, and didn't have the american newsfools drooling all over them, so they didn't gain notoriety, and won't be remembered when the lemmings go out to slavishly buy another personality's new (probably 100% ghostwritten) book.
She should be commended for her service, yes, but she was just another one who went over, had a hard time of it, and came back home (more-alive than many others have).
I would read biographies of The Noble Dead, not of The Road Accidents.
As cynical as it may sound, I think the reason the media is so fascinated with Ms. Lynch and not with the others is simple. She's a young, white, attractive girl. Pretty faces look good on TV and book covers. The majority of Americans can relate to the "girl next door" appeal of the stroy.
We saw the same thing in the mid-'90s with Bosnia vs. Rwanda...the Bosnian refugees and victims, with their homes, cars, and farms, looked familiar to the majority of TV news viewers. People were less inclined to care about the refugees and victims in Rwanda because it was "just another tribal war in Africa" with the "poor blacks, living in grass huts, doing what they always seem to do...kill each other."
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