Posted on 07/27/2003 2:19:40 PM PDT by protest1
The real hero behind the 'bravery' of Private Jessica By Julian Coman (Filed: 27/07/2003)
America's most famous woman soldier owes her fame to a case of mistaken identity, reports Julian Coman in Washington
As she watched Private Jessica Lynch's emotional homecoming on television last week, Arlene Walters struggled to suppress her growing anger.
For millions of Americans, Pte Lynch's first faltering steps in her home town of Elizabeth, West Virginia, were a moment of high emotion, a happy ending to one of the darkest incidents of the Iraq war.
For Mrs Walters, however, the standing ovation and praise lavished on the young woman soldier, who was captured by Iraqi forces and later freed in a dramatic American raid, served only to highlight the contrasting treatment of her dead son, who fought in the same unit.
It was, fellow soldiers have told her, Sgt Donald Walters who performed many of the heroics attributed to Pte Lynch in the fanfare of publicity designed to lift the nation's morale, and Sgt Walters who was killed after mounting a lone stand against the Iraqis who ambushed their convoy of maintenance vehicles near Nasiriyah.
Yet few, if any, of the Americans watching Pte Lynch's homecoming last week have even heard her son's name. "The military tell us that everyone who was in her unit was a hero," Mrs Walters told The Telegraph. "In fact they have singled out Jessica Lynch as the hero, and they are not giving the recognition to my son that he deserves.
"The fighter that they thought was Jessica Lynch was Donald. When he was found he had two stab wounds in the abdomen, and he'd been shot once in the right leg and twice in the back. And he'd emptied his rounds of ammunition. Just like they said Jessica had done at first."
Sgt Walters, a 33-year-old military cook from Oregon, blond and slim but not a photogenic female warrior, had been serving with the ill-fated 507th Maintenance Unit, in which Jessica Lynch was a supply clerk.
In the days following the elaborately staged rescue of Pte Lynch from her hospital ward on April 1, a blizzard of American media reports told how the soldier had exhausted all her ammunition before capture, in an isolated and brave "fight to the death".
They suggested that it was only after a prolonged battle, in which she was shot and stabbed, that she was eventually taken prisoner. In all, 11 soldiers were killed and six captured. It subsequently emerged, however, that the young soldier's rifle had jammed and her injuries were caused by her lorry colliding with another vehicle as the convoy came under attack.
Last week, with no fanfare, the US Army released a detailed report into the incident which makes it clear that a lone American fighter did, indeed, hold out against the Iraqis - but that the soldier was not Pte Lynch. It says that following the ambush, Sgt Walters may have been left behind, hiding beside a disabled tractor-trailer, as Iraqi troops closed in. The report confirms that he died of wounds identical to those first attributed to Pte Lynch.
"There is some information to suggest that a US soldier, that could have been Walters, fought his way south of Highway 16 towards a canal and was killed in action. Sgt Walters was in fact killed at some point during this portion of the attack. The circumstances of his death cannot be conclusively determined."
Fellow soldiers who witnessed the ambush have been less guarded. "One told me that if I read reports about a brave female soldier fighting, those reports were actually about Don," said Mrs Walters.
"The information about what had happened had been taken by the military from intercepted Iraqi signals, and the gender had gotten mixed up. He was certain that the early reports had mixed up Jessica and Don."
Mrs Walters and her husband are now struggling to persuade the US military to acknowledge fully their son's bravery. Sgt Walters has been posthumously awarded the bronze medal, but his relatives argue that higher honours are deserved. The army says the investigation into the incident is now closed.
"I just can't imagine him being left out there in the desert alone," said Mrs Walters, who is still haunted by images of her son's lone stand.
"I'm not trying to take anything away from Jessica. We just want Don to get the credit he is entitled to for his bravery."
She has her own theories about the Army's reluctance to give him due credit. "Perhaps the army don't want to admit to the fact that he was left behind in the desert to fight alone," she said. "It isn't a good news story."
Because that's what Private Lynch wanted.
Yep, get your Humvee shot up by Iraqis, survive a crash that kills 3 people, survive a hospital stay where rifle butts and car batteries are used, bravely face multiple back surgeries and rehab, show humbleness and you could get a Bronze Star. Based on you posts, I think you would fail the humbleness test alone. You'd be shouting from the rooftops how much better you are than everyone else because you were a POW.
And that cheapens the Bronze Stars given out to World War II, Korean War and early Vietnam War veterans.
The Medal of Honor itself underwent such a cheapening process. It was the only medal the U.S. issued during the Civil War. So, it was awarded from everything from great feats of combat heroism to non-combat meritorious service.
However, by the end of the Civil War, the cheapening of the Medal of Honor had progressed to the point that a Medal of Honor was awarded to every single man in the 27th Maine simply for re-enlisting and a Medal of Honor was also awarded to every man who served in President Lincoln's Funeral Honor Guard.
This sorry state of affairs was corrected in 1917 when Congress stepped in, conducted a review of all Medals of Honor that had been awarded and revoked those that had been awarded for less than the new strict criteria.
Although her Medal of Honor was revoked, a Civil War civilian physician, Mary Walker, refused to return her Medal of Honor and continued to wear it. Her Civil War service in no way qualified for the new strict criteria for the Medal of Honor but would have rated something equivalent to the future Meritorious Service Medal (setting aside the fact that she was a civilian).
During the Carter Administration, President Carter reinstated Mary Walker's Medal of Honor. With that return to the Nineteeth Century cheapening of the award, feminists now lionize Mary Walker as "The Only Female Medal of Honor Winner" and even succeeded in having a U.S. Postage stamp issued in her honor.
She was one of the ones complaining early that Jessica was photogenic and that's why she was getting attention. Why is it that they can't use reason to see that a rescued POW is a big deal and even if that were a male soldier being carried out, we'd be watching him returning home on all the channels instead of Jessica. Plus this CMOH issue is an issue that never had legs and to continually bring it up when no one else is months after it was forgotten is vindictive.
You read! I am not talking about your husband - I am discussing CWOJackson's humility in my post. The one where I compared his humble and gracious attitude to your stink and venom.
I just think the MEDIA is selling the other POW's short. Especially Pvt. Johnson is being sold short with all the clamoring over Jessica like she was the only female who was captured and abused when that clearly isn't the case.
What does THE MEDIA have against Pvt. Johnson?
Could it be she was a lone rescuee in a dramatic raid? Perhaps the first POW rescued since WW2 if I'm not mistaken?
I'll post to who I want.
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