how about the "news" media?
So, dearest Jessica, you and your family have not benefitted financially from any of this?? Is that right?
With all due respect and gratitude for your service, PFC Lynch, shut the h*$% up!
Someone has told her wrong. I don't believe the Pentagon EVER put out that information. That stuff was contained in the Washington Post story that came out just after the firefight, but before she was rescued.
Owl_Eagle
" WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH"
If she thinks this type of publicity is bad, what would she think of the films of dead American soldiers being dragged through the mud during Vietnam? I would rather be filmed getting rescued than get filmed in a bodybag.
I will never UNDERSTAND the need of most Americans to appear on TV and answer inane questions about how they FEEL about one subject or the other.
Pvt. Lynch, the Pentagon and the Army would (rightly) expect you to fight to the death, so there is no reason for them to think that you wouldn't do that. It doesn't matter that you are in vehicle maintenance or not...you're a solider. Now, initial reports are often (usually) wrong and those doing the briefing that Sunday morning explained that they didn't know all the details. Perhaps someone in the command chain wanted you to have dignity as a soldier (i.e., figthing their heart out)? This wouldn't be some scheme of the Pentagon. This would be one soldier wanted another soldier be portrayed in a dignified light.
I don't see anything wrong with that. Now, that shouldn't (and isn't) the ultimate conclusion of the story.
If Pvt. Lynch says that he weapon jammed, I am sure that the Pentagon believes her. We know that they debriefed her and the official record would reflect her account of the last moments before her capture, including her M-16 jamming.
That initial reports are wrong and those stories reported seem more "romantic" than what actually happened, shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Half of the stories about historical events in the "Old West" are WAY over glorified and over dramatized.
Everyone knows about the so-called "Fog of War", which explains PRECISELY why her rescue was filmed. Too many would question what the rescuers did and how it went down.
Was the rescue a really "hot" extraction? Not particularly.
Was it fairly documentary in nature? Yes, in military terms...inlcuding the "Matrix" green nightvision effect.
Was it dramatic? Of course, Pvt Lynch. Many Americans had been praying for your safe return and being able to see your relatively mundane extraction was quite dramatic.
Did the Pentagon use this for some proganda purposes? I don't think so at all. Americans got what they wanted: their prayers answered for a soldier's return. The fact that they got to see it happen was captivating, but the real benefit was that you were coming home.
So, perhaps, you can keep your comments to yourself about "being used".
Doesn't seem to me that the President, Don Rumsfeld, or General Meyers is being paid for the Jessica Lynch story. Are they?
Sawyer and the other America-hating lefties are perhaps twisting Jessica's words against her, selectively editing what she says and taking statements out of context. I think this quote shows that.
Let's just look at some of the facts. Lynch is a teenage girl who joins the Army so she can take advantage of the GI Bill and get some schooling later on. She gets sent to the front of the Iraq war and gets all torn up in an accident, and then gets captured by the smelly camel-jocky barbarians and raped. They treat her severe injuries in a "hospital" that couldn't pass for a skid row outhouse in America. She has shattered bones and injuries that put her in excruciating pain and will leave her partially disabled for life.
The real heros, (Special Forces and Marines), show up and rescue her.
Now she lies on a hospital bed in Germany, still in a stupor. Meanwhile, certain powers and forces back home want to use her for their own personal gain. The feminists want to make into an American icon, a female "David" who slayed the Iraqi "Goliath". The liberal media want to use her for essentially the same purposes, and to sell newspapers. ALL the media, including conservative t.v. networks like FOX, invade her hometown neighborhood and set up a three ring circus of cameras, lights, microphones and talking heads to try get an interview with her family. All the while she lays in a hospital bed in Germany slowly recovering from the severe physical and emotional trauma she had been subjected to. An Army spokesman reveals that Jessica cannot remember much of the trauma, and that it will be weeks before she can even get up and try to walk around.
Months later Jessica finally heals enough to walk and talk and answer questions by the newshounds and those with a personal agenda. She has the chance of a lifetime to become a national hero, (and rich), if she just plays their game. But Jessica also knows that she is being used as a political football, a "thing", by all sides, for their own gain. She's still just a kid, mind you, trying to make sense of it all, trying to decide what to do. Here is where she becomes a hero in my mind. She decides not to play the game of Wonder Woman and reveals that she never even fired her weapon. She admits that her rescuers were the real heros of this story. She doesn't want ANYONE, not the media, not the feminists, not even the Army to say or indicate things that would maker her out to be a hero. She just wants to be Jessica Lynch, a cute little blonde girl from W. Virginia. She wants to get on with her life and get back to normal. She knows this will never happen. Thank you, Jessica Lynch for your service and for being so honest and humble. I am sorry that people on all sides of this story want to use for their personal gain, or to trash you for not being what they want you to be, and for not saying what they want you to say. You are indeed brave, and you are in my prayers.