Command Releases Details of Lynch Rescue

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news ^ | 6 minutes ago Sat, Apr 05, 2003 | By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Command Releases Details of Lynch Rescue

6 minutes ago

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer

CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar - Frightened and seriously wounded, a 19-year-old supply clerk who was held by Iraq (news - web sites) for more than a week at first hid under a sheet when a team of U.S. military commandos stormed into her hospital room.

"Jessica Lynch," called out an American soldier, approaching her bed. "We are United States soldiers and we're here to protect you and take you home."

Peering from behind the sheet as he removed his helmet, she looked up and said, "I'm an American soldier, too."

In the first details released about the daring rescue of Pfc. Lynch, a Central Command spokesman told a briefing Saturday that a team of Navy Seals, Marine commandos, Air Force pilots and Army Rangers worked with U.S. Special Forces in the rescue Tuesday in Nasiriyah.

While troops engaged the Iraqis in another part of the city, the team persuaded an Iraqi doctor to lead them to Lynch, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Gene Renuart.

Lynch, now recuperating at the military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, had suffered a head wound and fractures in her right arm, both legs, her right foot and ankle, and an injury to her spine. The rescue team quickly evaluated her medical condition, secured her to a stretcher and carried her to a waiting helicopter, Renault said.

"Jessica held up her hand and grabbed the Ranger doctor's hand, and held onto it for the entire time, and said, 'Please don't let anybody leave me,'" Renault said. "It was clear she knew where she was and didn't want to be left anywhere near the enemy."

Meanwhile, the Iraqi doctor told the team there were remains of other U.S. forces nearby, and they were led to a burial site. Because they had not brought shovels, Renault said, the team dug up the bodies with their hands.

"They wanted to do that very rapidly, so they could race the sun and be off the site before the sun came up," Renault said. "It's a great testament to the will and desire of coalition forces to bring their own home."

Renault did not shed any new light on how Lynch sustained her wounds — whether she was injured in captivity or when the 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed March 23 when they made a wrong turn in Nasiriyah.

Eight of the dead soldiers found during the rescue were members of the ambushed unit, Renuart said. The ninth was a soldier from a forward support group of the Army's Third Infantry Division, he said. All have been transported back to the United States.

Lynch's family in West Virginia said doctors had determined she'd been shot. They found two entry and exit wounds "consistent with low-velocity, small-caliber rounds," said her mother, Deadra Lynch.

She had a back operation Thursday and surgery for other broken bones Friday, said the commander of the hospital, Col. David Rubenstein. A friend is at her bedside and although she's still being fed intravenously, she's drawn up a list of her favorite foods for the hospital: turkey, steamed carrots and applesauce.

"Her emotional state is extremely good. She's jovial. She's talking with staff," Rubenstein said.

Lynch's family was to fly Saturday from from Charleston, W.Va., to Germany to see her.

While the U.S. team was in the hospital, Renault said, they also found a weapons cache and a large-scale sandbox model in the basement that accurately depicted U.S. and Iraqi positions in Nasiriyah

[Guenevere]

#58...Look you, anyone who has the strength of will to survive days & days of starvation, fear and torture is a very special person!

This does not negate the honor & respect & homage due to those POW's who did not make it out alive!!

[GOP_Proud]

< The POWs who did not survive should be considered heroes as much as Pvt. Lynch. Her survival does not make her a hero, for the most part it means she was lucky. >

No one is trying to or going to forget her fallen soldiers nor other POWs. They are all heroes. A story like Jessica's is uplifting and it's perfectly natural to latch on to it.

I don't agree that her survival "means she was lucky". It just means that she managed somehow to make it. I think it's very early to make rash statements about "luck". I'm not sure how I would fair with bullet wounds and broken bones and a fractured back. Doesn't sound too lucky to me.

[1stFreedom]

First there was Rambo...

Now..

RAMBETTE!!!

This woman has a place in history and is already famous. I hope she can adjust to that.

Hopefully, she isn't a feminazi. Would be nice if she is conservative. Otherwise, the likes of NOW and NARAL will parade her around as a role model.

[solzhenitsyn]

Her survival does not make her a hero, for the most part it means she was lucky.

She's a hero to me. Not for being rescued, but for what she did before she was rescued.

[DED]

I don't have a problem with anything she gets - I think she and her family have handled all of this very well.
I just worry about the families of those who died - how would it feel for NO ONE to be concerned about YOUR kid, while they fall all over themselves in their happiness over PFC. Lynch?
As for Rush, I agree except that everyone but Rush was considerate enough NOT to speculate on the air.

[GOP_Proud]

< The POWs who did not survive should be considered heroes as much as Pvt. Lynch. Her survival does not make her a hero, for the most part it means she was lucky. >

Every person who serves in any capacity in the military is an automatic hero to me. They are always there to protect me.

[DED]

I don't think you have to worry about that.
You don't find the feminazis much where she comes from.
Feminazis don't sign up for the military, and they don't have the GUTS to fight like she did - and HEAVENS, they couldn't POSSIBLY hold a gun, let alone FIRE one!

[GOP_Proud]

< I don't think you have to worry about that.
You don't find the feminazis much where she comes from. >


agreed.

[drjoe]

Maybe they could name one of those four lane divided highways that go from Nowhere WV to Nowhere2 WV, the Jessica Lynch Memorial Highway.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I guess you haven't read many of the threads here about Jessica. This place is crawling with 2 inchers. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a FR Poster who made that call to Limbaugh.

[Mr_Magoo]

For once I agree with you.

I hope it is not habit forming.

[Eowyn-of-Rohan]

Hey "you", I am not in ANY way trying to diminish her fortitude, stamina, courage, faith, and anything/everything else that sustained her through the hell she has experienced. She is a hero to me, too. But so are the others, and the fact they didn't survive doesn't mean they had one ounce less of the same stuff that got Pvt. Lynch through. We don't know what killed them. I for one don't want to know. Having said all this, on top of everything I said about her, Jessica Lynch is the lucky one.

[homeschool mama]

**I guess you haven't read many of the threads here about Jessica. This place is crawling with 2 inchers. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a FR Poster who made that call to Limbaugh. **

Boy, aint that the truth. :o/

[No Truce With Kings]

"It would be nice if they would rename one of the bridges, stadiums, community centers, ect that Byrd has slapped his name on after Pfc. Lynch."

Ah, . . . she isn't dead, yet. Let's wait a while on Jessica Lynch memorial anythings.

That restriction does not apply to naming stuff after Robert Byrd because he has been dead, from the neck up, for a long time.

[Guenevere]

OK, sorry....it's the 'YOU' you didn't like...

..but surely you know it took more than 'luck' to stay alive during this ordeal.

Most wouldn't have...

[Cultural Jihad]

That's when I lost it, too. Digging the bodies of our dead up with their hands....determined to not leave anyone behind. What courage and dedication to duty and honor.

Such a far, far cry from the uberpatriot extremist individualist so-called constitutionalists who would have just shrugged and asked, 'What's in it for me personally?'

[Roscoe]

Poor banned Demidog.

[Neets]

AHHH!!!! That's my Guennie!!!!!

[Kevin Curry]

Poor banned Demidog.

I thought I heard the 'dog baying mournfully in the dark last night. With genuine, God-fearing. America-loving conservatism on the ascendent stroke, it's a lonely and hard, hard time to be a 'dog.