Lynch Talks

Jessica Lynch has been lionized as a hero by the military, vilified as a fake by the rabid anti-war crowd – she has been bandied back and forth like a tennis ball. She is not a symbol, she is a person, she did not fight like Rambo when she was captured, she didn’t fire a shot, but neither was her capture and rescue a staged farce. She was raped in captivity, she still can’t walk without crutches, and has no feeling in her left foot – sound like a picnic?

Lynch’s book and TV interview with Diane Sawyer debut next Tuesday:

Army private Jessica Lynch, the badly injured U.S. prisoner of war who was rescued from a hospital during the Iraq war, said in her first interview that she is not the Rambo-style hero she has been portrayed as by American media and the military.

Lynch, 20, told ABC network reporter Diane Sawyer in an interview to be aired on “Primetime” next Tuesday, the same day as her authorized biography is published, that she never fired a shot when ambushed.

“My weapon did jam and I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. I don’t look at myself as a hero. My heroes are Lori (Private Lori Piestewa, who died in the ambush of Lynch’s convoy), the soldiers that are over there, the soldiers that were in the car beside me, the ones that came and rescued me,” she said.

Lynch is still recovering from injuries to her spine, and cannot walk without crutches. She has no feeling in her left foot and has other medical problems.

Lynch, who became a symbol of U.S. heroism during the early stages of the war on Iraq, insisted, “I am just a survivor.”

….Lynch said she was thankful to the soldiers who rescued her but said she was troubled by the way the incident was portrayed by the military.

“It does (bother me) that they used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff … yeah, it’s wrong … I don’t know why they filmed it, or why they say the things they, you know.”

….According to Sawyer, the book “I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story,” cites a medical record as indicating that Lynch was raped.

The young private was captured by Iraqis on March 23 near Nassiriya. Eleven other U.S. soldiers were killed and nine wounded in the incident. [Reuters]

Both sides should be ashamed for using her as a pawn – we should admire her strength and integrity for turning herself back into a person again.