jennifer
11-28-2008, 05:31 PM
The Jessica Lynch story is a biography that depicts what really happened and the reasons for the media hype & the mis-reports of heroism.
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s298/fitzlaff/lynch_jessica.jpgIn the beginning of our movement into Iraq in March, 2003, Jesi was (like me) mission support. She was supposed to carry a clipboard and be sure the troops had all the TP they needed, but she needed to get there first and getting there was a problem.
She was 19 years young, going to basic right out of High School & to the sandbox soon after tech school. She was a tiny little thing, looking like a child dressing in her daddies clothes when she dressed in her desert camo for duty. She (and her unit) was dog-tired before they started their journey to Bagdad, as they were constantly responding to sirens to hit the bunkers when mortar rounds would go off near them. But it was time.
Her group was at the tail end of a long caravan of supply trucks. She drove the water truck at first, but its engine choked on the blowing sand and finally grinded to a halt. She hopped in a Hum-Vee while a tow truck snagged the water truck. The road conditions were awful, as drifting sand covered the road knee high in spots. Her part of the caravan drifted further and further behind, out of radio contact with the rest. Then they went the wrong way- right into enemy hands.
Why the Marines at the crossroad didn't stop them, I don't know. Why the group leader didn't know to avoid the city, Jesi doesn't know. By the time the grenades started flyer and the guns blaring, and the caravan did their U-turn, Jesi knew she was in trouble. Her M-16 jammed from the dust, just like the water truck. Many others suffered the same fate. Jesi saw them clawing at their rifles, as useless as clubs from the dust. Bullets went through their windsheild and an Iraqi vehicle slammed into them. What happened next was too tramatic for Jesi to remember.
3 hours she lost. When she awoke, she was in an Iraqi hospital unable to move. She feared they would kill her or torture her, feared that they would take her to Saddam and he would torture her on camera, she feared they would poison her food or drug her to transport her.
The doctors did the best they could to put her back together, the best they knew to keep her alive. They even risked trying to take her the soldiers in an ambulance, but the marines feared the ambulance because the insurgents had already used an ambulance to trick the soldiers into getting close enough, opned the back doors and starting shooting at the Americans, so the marines shot toward the ambulance and the driver returned Jesi to the hospital.
When the soldiers heard about Jesi, they thought of their little sisters, their nieces and daughters and their girlfriends. The stories spread about the little blonde girl held captive that must be saved. They said she took 2 bullets and kept shooting, killing many insurgents before succombing to her wounds.
Alas, she was rescued by the Special Forces unit sent to save her. A soldier stood at the end of her bed, tore a patch from his uniform and pressed it into her hand and said he was an American soldier, here to rescue her. She said the first thing that came to her head, "I am an American soldier, too!"
When the truth came to light, that she didn't go down fighting, many said it was a myth that she or the media or the military created with political interests at heart to rally support for the war. Jesi was the first to say she wasn't a hero- she was just a survivor. The others in her group were the heros.
The hospital report said she arrived with a head wound, mangled arm (her bones in splinters) and leg (more splinters) and lower spine and that she had been raped and sodomized. The Iraqi doctors had tried to repair her leg with a rod that was too big for her. They had later planned to amputate her leg to save her life, but she fought the anesthesia mask until they conceeded. After 9 days, she was still unable to go to the bathroom due to the spinal damage, her wounds were getting infected, she was becoming malnourished, and bed sores were taking over from her inability to move.
The doctors at Ramstein AFB, Germany, had to conduct a multitude of surgeries on her, first using metal plates and screws and pins to rebuild her spine and then re-doing the pin in her leg. When she first spoke with her parents, while on morphine, she told her dad "The Iraqi man broke my arm, dad." indicating that she did remember something of the 3 hours between the crash & when she awoke in the Iraqi hospital, but through her long recovery process, she now remembers nothing at all of the horrific ordeal.
She now has a baby and is walking well. Her parents hope she never remembers what really happened after the crash. Maybe it is better if we don't remember what we clearly have chosen to forget.
Here's to you, Jesi! You are a survivor, who the rest of America needs as a hero because we can't hug and touch and see the others. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for your service to America. God bless our POW/MIAs!
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s298/fitzlaff/lynch_jessica.jpgIn the beginning of our movement into Iraq in March, 2003, Jesi was (like me) mission support. She was supposed to carry a clipboard and be sure the troops had all the TP they needed, but she needed to get there first and getting there was a problem.
She was 19 years young, going to basic right out of High School & to the sandbox soon after tech school. She was a tiny little thing, looking like a child dressing in her daddies clothes when she dressed in her desert camo for duty. She (and her unit) was dog-tired before they started their journey to Bagdad, as they were constantly responding to sirens to hit the bunkers when mortar rounds would go off near them. But it was time.
Her group was at the tail end of a long caravan of supply trucks. She drove the water truck at first, but its engine choked on the blowing sand and finally grinded to a halt. She hopped in a Hum-Vee while a tow truck snagged the water truck. The road conditions were awful, as drifting sand covered the road knee high in spots. Her part of the caravan drifted further and further behind, out of radio contact with the rest. Then they went the wrong way- right into enemy hands.
Why the Marines at the crossroad didn't stop them, I don't know. Why the group leader didn't know to avoid the city, Jesi doesn't know. By the time the grenades started flyer and the guns blaring, and the caravan did their U-turn, Jesi knew she was in trouble. Her M-16 jammed from the dust, just like the water truck. Many others suffered the same fate. Jesi saw them clawing at their rifles, as useless as clubs from the dust. Bullets went through their windsheild and an Iraqi vehicle slammed into them. What happened next was too tramatic for Jesi to remember.
3 hours she lost. When she awoke, she was in an Iraqi hospital unable to move. She feared they would kill her or torture her, feared that they would take her to Saddam and he would torture her on camera, she feared they would poison her food or drug her to transport her.
The doctors did the best they could to put her back together, the best they knew to keep her alive. They even risked trying to take her the soldiers in an ambulance, but the marines feared the ambulance because the insurgents had already used an ambulance to trick the soldiers into getting close enough, opned the back doors and starting shooting at the Americans, so the marines shot toward the ambulance and the driver returned Jesi to the hospital.
When the soldiers heard about Jesi, they thought of their little sisters, their nieces and daughters and their girlfriends. The stories spread about the little blonde girl held captive that must be saved. They said she took 2 bullets and kept shooting, killing many insurgents before succombing to her wounds.
Alas, she was rescued by the Special Forces unit sent to save her. A soldier stood at the end of her bed, tore a patch from his uniform and pressed it into her hand and said he was an American soldier, here to rescue her. She said the first thing that came to her head, "I am an American soldier, too!"
When the truth came to light, that she didn't go down fighting, many said it was a myth that she or the media or the military created with political interests at heart to rally support for the war. Jesi was the first to say she wasn't a hero- she was just a survivor. The others in her group were the heros.
The hospital report said she arrived with a head wound, mangled arm (her bones in splinters) and leg (more splinters) and lower spine and that she had been raped and sodomized. The Iraqi doctors had tried to repair her leg with a rod that was too big for her. They had later planned to amputate her leg to save her life, but she fought the anesthesia mask until they conceeded. After 9 days, she was still unable to go to the bathroom due to the spinal damage, her wounds were getting infected, she was becoming malnourished, and bed sores were taking over from her inability to move.
The doctors at Ramstein AFB, Germany, had to conduct a multitude of surgeries on her, first using metal plates and screws and pins to rebuild her spine and then re-doing the pin in her leg. When she first spoke with her parents, while on morphine, she told her dad "The Iraqi man broke my arm, dad." indicating that she did remember something of the 3 hours between the crash & when she awoke in the Iraqi hospital, but through her long recovery process, she now remembers nothing at all of the horrific ordeal.
She now has a baby and is walking well. Her parents hope she never remembers what really happened after the crash. Maybe it is better if we don't remember what we clearly have chosen to forget.
Here's to you, Jesi! You are a survivor, who the rest of America needs as a hero because we can't hug and touch and see the others. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for your service to America. God bless our POW/MIAs!