First Girl Lost in War

The Sun ^ | 24 March 2003 | Will Barker

[Plainsman]

A PRETTY 19-year-old country girl who joined the US Army to escape unemployment was feared to be the first woman soldier to die yesterday.

Blonde Jessica Lynch was among 12 soldiers in a US supply convoy ambushed by Iraqi troops. Her parents were left weeping like others in America and Britain as more Coalition victims of the war were identified.

Supply clerk Jessica was feared dead after five survivors from the ambush were paraded before Iraqi TV cameras in sickening footage beamed around the world on Sunday.

Also shown were the bodies of the other seven members of the 507th Maintenance Co convoy, but Jessica’s parents could not identify her among them.

Her father Greg Lynch said: “The only thing they can tell us is she’s missing.

“I just want them to bring her back safely — her and all the rest of the kids.”

Private Jessica — known as Jessie — only joined up because she could not find a job in her farming community home town of Palestine, West Virginia.

Lorene Cumbridge, a 62-year-old cousin, said: “She’s just a West Virginia country girl. Warm-hearted. Outgoing. I really thought growing up she would become an elementary school teacher.

Missing ... supply clerk Jessica

But for West Virginia children in some of the more rural areas, the military is the one good chance of getting an education and making something of themselves.”

Lack of jobs and the military service of her older brother, Gregory Lynch Jr., led Jessica into the Army, her father said.

She signed up before graduating from Wirt County High School in Elizabeth, where she played basketball and softball.

Greg said: “The Army offered a good deal.” Jessica’s brother is stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Locals have been supporting Greg, Jessica’s mother Deidre, and her 17-year-old sister, Brandi Renee.

A yellow ribbon was tied to a tree near the family’s mailbox and two others were attached to posts on the front porch.

[bonesmccoy]

According to the Wash Times, you sir are incorrect!


Female captive first since Pentagon altered rule
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


One of the five U.S. soldiers captured by Iraqi forces and questioned on Iraqi television is the first female POW since the Clinton administration's military leaders repealed a rule barring servicewomen from positions with a high risk of encountering enemy fire or capture. Top Stories
• 12 U.S. soldiers killed or captured
• U.S. calls footage of POWs 'disgusting'
• 7,000 rally to show support for troops
• British jet downed by 'friendly fire'
• Saddam likely still alive


In 1994, the Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Les Aspin, discarded the "Risk Rule" and authorized women to serve in any post other than in frontline infantry, special-operations forces, or armor or artillery units.
The Pentagon was swayed by feminists, said Elaine Donnelly, president of the Military Readiness Center, an independent public policy organization that specializes in military personnel issues.
"It's bad when a man is captured. But if a woman is captured, she doesn't have the same chance [to defend herself] that a man does," said Mrs. Donnelly.
Both Mrs. Donnelly and retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis said when they learned of the woman's capture, they thought about a female POW from the 1991 Persian Gulf war who was sexually assaulted by Iraqis.
Col. Maginnis, a Fox News analyst, said no one should be surprised if a female POW is sexually assaulted.
"You must consider that women in every society are preyed upon if they are overtaken. ... Now that women are closer to the front lines, they are more subject to becoming captives and being manipulated," he said.
Published reports say women are allowed to hold 52 percent of active-duty positions in the Marines, about a twofold increase since the rule change, while women in the Army can hold 70 percent of such positions. Women in the Air Force and Navy can perform in 99 percent of active-duty positions, about a 30 percent increase since 1993.
A recent study from the think tank RAND noted that the services limit the number of women they recruit for certain occupations. A previous study said about 10 percent of military women favor combat roles for females.
Iraqi footage of the POWs, replayed on the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network, also shows the bodies of at least four other soldiers, some of whom appear to have been shot through the head.
U.S. officials last night said 12 soldiers were unaccounted for but did not release the names of the five POWs who wire service reports said were from the Army's 507th Maintenance unit out of Fort Bliss, Texas. A 6 p.m. press conference at Fort Bliss was canceled last night.
Col. Maginnis said people in both maintenance and transportation units are vulnerable to capture. But he said those in support units do not receive the same training in escape and survival as other soldiers. There simply is not enough time, he said.
Fox News said yesterday that it was told that personnel in the 507th Maintenance unit received basic combat training.
"We clearly need to reconsider the decision made in the early 1990s for the good of the country and the good of women," said Col. Maginnis.
Prior to the Risk Rule change, servicewomen were also barred from even support roles for combat troops, said Mrs. Donnelly, who suspected that a woman would be among the captives when she heard they were from the Army's 507th.
Mrs. Donnelly said it bothers her that Maj. Rhonda Cornum, the flight surgeon for the Army's 2-229th Attack Helicopter Battalion who was captured by Iraqis 12 years ago, didn't tell the public about her sexual abuse for four years.
"She was a staunch advocate of women in combat, and she withheld that information. ... If the world had known what happened to her, it might have changed the debate," said Mrs. Donnelly.
A second woman captured and later released in the first Gulf war has not said whether she was sexually assaulted, Mrs. Donnelly said.

[Servant of the Nine]

So what's next? Children in combat? Overweight people in combat? Mentally handicapped people in combat? Blind people in combat? What if they demand their right to serve? If you oppose them it would be discrimination, you know.

Go ahead, tell us how wimmin are defective, handicapped, inferior to real people (men).

So9

[windsail]

Sad to hear about the lose of one of our own. My prayers for her and her family. West Virginia has always had the highest enlistment rate "per capita" in the nation going back to the first world war. It's not all about economics or just getting out that is the reason for the high rate. It's tradition and patriotism, runs very deep in families here. Mine included.

Peace to her from another veteran. MONTANI SEMPER LIBERI

[dandelion]

Unfortunately, they are doing the same things to our brave boys. Talk about horror. I saw the pictures on Drudge - you can't help it when he posts them on the front page - and someone else thought the same thing I did. These men were brutally assaulted by their captors before they died. The Iraqis have a history of brutalising men as well as women. Each is equally horrible, but for our men in the field the threats of castration and rape may carry a different set of horrors, horrors for which they may not be prepared.

We need to pray for all these taken captive, for they will need all our spiritual support both now and after the war...

[JeepInMazar]

I agree with you to a certian extent. However, I could never really understand why the military sometimes advertised itself as simply a career choice or cool job opportunity.

[Anamensis]

Why? Because some of the boys don't have enough discipline to keep their minds on the job when a woman is around? Because you haven't had a new idea in 30 years?

Because if she's taken prisoner she'll probably be gang-raped till she bleeds to death? Oops, are we not supposed to know about that?

[dandelion]

Truce. You are as passionate as I am, and strong women must fulfill their duty on this earth Without us as mothers, there would be no warriors!

[Age of Reason]

I don't have to wonder, only "Godless" communist countries put "girls" in harms way on purpose. That's a fact. That show's you where our society is, in the gutter.

And it shows how well the commies have subverted the values that made America great, in that so many who would call themselves "conservative" defend commie beliefs.

[Servant of the Nine]

Because if she's taken prisoner she'll probably be gang-raped till she bleeds to death? Oops, are we not supposed to know about that?

As the woman Helicopter Pilot captured in Gulf War I said, she was raped, so what?
You think they didn't rape the men too?
These are Arabs.
It is just that telling the truth about what happens to our men POWs would be too demeaning even for network TV.

SO9

[annyokie]

Damned right! I just got told I was "inflammatory". Passionate is better, is it not?

God Bless our warriors!

[dandelion]

What they have done to our men is beyond animal. Those who have perpetrated these evils against our people and their own deserve death, nothing else.

[dandelion]

Truce!! Let's train our fire on the enemy for now... then we can tussle amongst ourselves in a more peaceful time.

[CommandoFrank]

I also open doors for Ladies...

[annyokie]

Truce! Thank you, girlfriend! The enemy is over there not here.

[Capriole]

describing this brave woman in uniform this way is doing NOBODY any favors

I guess technically you're right--she's over 18 and thus an adult in law. But the truth is that at 19 she's a girl, just as her comrades in arms are also boys if they're but 19. At least that's the perspective of someone who's old enough to be their mommy. Makes it all the more tragic. They didn't even have a chance to finish growing up.

[Servant of the Nine]

When they filmed our dead POWs, why do you think their pants had been pulled down?
When they finished with them they shot them in the head.

That is the fact that made the film too hot for TV to handle. They didn't mind showing our dead in Mogadishu.

So9

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

In the poor rural part of Missouri where I come from it was a rite of passage back in the 50's to enlist into the services at age 17 to escape the grinding poverty. But we all knew full well what we were about and the duty expected of us.

[CheneyChick]

I also open doors for Ladies...

LOL! And when I wore Army boots, I *let* the male soldiers open doors for me - just like I do now in my high heels.

Cheers, CC :)