"capture and rescue tale embellished" says Lynch

[bobobrazil1984 0]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles...hed_lynch_says/

 

Capture and rescue tale embellished, Lynch says

By Erin McClam, Associated Press, 11/12/2003

 

NEW YORK -- Private First Class Jessica Lynch said yesterday that she is disturbed that the military seemed to overdramatize her rescue by US troops and spread false stories that she went down shooting in an Iraqi ambush.

 

"That wasn't me. I wasn't about to take credit for something I didn't do," she said. "I'm not that person."

 

The 20-year-old former Army supply clerk described her ordeal in a Veterans Day interview seven months after the rescue made her a national hero.

 

Reports circulated by the US military early in the war said Lynch waged a fierce gunbattle with Iraqi fighters who ambushed her 507th Maintenance Company on March 23 at Nasiriyah.

 

She has since said her rifle jammed, and she did not get off a shot.

 

Video shot by the Americans who rescued her nine days later at an Iraqi hospital suggested they encountered resistance in a daring raid. Lynch's new book says hospital staff did not resist, and even offered US troops a key.

 

Still, the former prisoner of war from rural West Virginia took pains to say that she does not care why the military may have exaggerated her story, and that she considers the soldiers who rescued her April 1 to be heroes. "No matter what it was, the point is that they got in there, they rescued me, and they took me home safe," she said.

 

Lynch physically recoils when she recounts her time in the hospital, a time when her hope dwindled each day.

 

But she said that as she lay in a bed at Saddam Hussein General Hospital, she decided: "I wasn't going to let myself die there."

 

Lynch spoke with the Associated Press as her biography, "I Am a Soldier, Too," hit bookstores nationwide. It was written by Rick Bragg, a former New York Times reporter. The book describes the Iraqi doctors and nurses who cared for her as thoughtful and gentle people who repeatedly and secretly tried to see her to freedom.

 

Lynch cannot remember three hours between the ambush, when Iraqi troops swarmed her convoy after it missed a turn, and waking up in an Iraqi military hospital, according to the book. In that time, according to medical records cited in the biography, Lynch suffered spinal fractures and other broken bones and was sodomized. Iraqi doctors have disputed the sexual assault allegations. Lynch said she tries to avoid news coverage of the fighting in Iraq because her memories are too painful. She said the almost-daily reports of US troop casualties deeply sadden her.She would not discuss claims yesterday by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt that he bought nude photos of Lynch last month and intended to run them, but changed his mind because she is a "good kid" who became "a pawn for the government."

 

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

 

I'm sure most of us knew this already, but its good to see that Lynch is actually speaking out about this and not keeping her mouth shut while the falsehoods spread.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Between this, the anal rape/no anal rape, the other crazyness, Flynt buying her nudes and 5,000 other crazy things, it is time to consider a moon landing style conspiracy where nothing really happened at all. :b

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

OK, now I have a serious question.

 

Did the military overdramatize this rescue or the media?

 

When a story like this hits I just tune out because I know I'm going to get sick of hearing about it.

 

However, whenever I saw a Rummy press conference it seemed like he, or another spokesperson, was always playing this incident down saying that they have no idea what the facts/details are.

 

I'm probably going to get "R U MAD?" posts from some places here, but I'm totally serious on this...

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Did the military overdramatize this rescue or the media?

Both.

[Swift Terror 0]

This could be half-truth/propaganda, I don't know, but the military (I don't know specifically what department) has said that they intercepted an Iraqi communication shortly after this convoy accident happened. The persons speaking mentioned a blonde soldier engaged in a fire-fight or something to that effect. So the word got out once they found out that Lynch was captured, that it was her. Turned out to be someone else (male).

 

It's good that Lynch herself is downplaying all this, but it has been reported for months now that she did not go Rambo on anyone. This is no revelation from her.

 

Definitely, the military saw an opportunity for a story here and wanted to promote it. So did the media.

[Guest Cerebus]

I'll have to look for the articles but she was, for a brief time, credited for about a dozen kills after her APC went down that were eventually credited to another (dead) member of her squad. I was in the Navy for a brief time and my fiance's younger brother is a Marine and the idea that one of my old friends or my soon-to-be brother-in-law could be killed and his honors be transfered to another person for pure propaganda reasons sickens me to the very core.

[tommytomlin 0]

I think the media was just happy she was blonde and good-looking.

[Anakin Flair 0]

Apparently, so was Flynt.

[Guest MikeSC]

Two questions:

 

1) How, exactly, is she is "hero"? Personally, I don't find getting captured and raped "heroic". Tragic perhaps, but heroic? Those who freed her were heroic. She was either stupid (as some have suggested) or simply a victim of bad circumstances.

 

2) Why isn't Larry Flynt publishing the pictures? Something is REAL fishy there. He is not known as the kind of guy to protect a girl's "reputation".

-=Mike

[Guest Cerebus]

2) Why isn't Larry Flynt publishing the pictures? Something is REAL fishy there. He is not known as the kind of guy to protect a girl's "reputation".

 

Maybe to avoid massive backlash?

[Guest MikeSC]

2) Why isn't Larry Flynt publishing the pictures? Something is REAL fishy there. He is not known as the kind of guy to protect a girl's "reputation".

 

Maybe to avoid massive backlash?

Um, it's LARRY FLYNT.

 

I don't think public backlash is a concern.

-=Mike