Posted on 3/25/2003, 4:10:09 PM by countrydummy
PALESTINE — A West Virginia woman who joined the U.S. Army because there were few jobs in her native Wirt County is among a dozen soldiers reported missing after a supply convoy was ambushed in southern Iraq, her father said Monday.
Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19, of Palestine, works as a supply clerk with the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company, said her father, Greg Lynch.
“The only thing they can tell us is she’s missing,” Lynch said.
He said that an Army official, accompanied by State Police, came Sunday night to the family’s two-story white house, perched atop a hill along a one-lane dirt road.
On Monday, one yellow ribbon was tied to a tree near the family’s mailbox and two others were attached to posts on the front porch. Two American flags flew from a second-floor porch.
Some members of the 507th were shown on Iraqi television as prisoners being questioned Sunday. Jessica Lynch was not one of them.
“We saw it on TV and kind of suspected,” Greg Lynch said. “I just want them to bring her back safely — her and all the rest of the kids.”
Jean Offutt, a U.S. Army spokeswoman at Fort Bliss, Texas, where the 507th is based, said 10 or more of the soldiers missing Sunday were with the company, which deployed last month with the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade. It is not considered a combat unit, officials said.
Lynch said neighbors and friends had been dropping by and calling since his wife, Deadra, and Jessica’s 17-year-old sister, Brandi Renee, a high school senior, first learned the news.
“Everyone has been real supportive,” he said.
Palestine is a farming community in one of West Virginia’s least-populated counties, which contains about 5,900 residents. Wirt County’s 15 percent unemployment rate in January was one of the state’s highest.
Lorene Cumbridge, a 62-year-old cousin who lives about a quarter of a mile from the Lynches, said Jessica, known to family and friends as Jesse, grew up playing at her home.
“She’s just a West Virginia country girl. Warm-hearted. Outgoing,” Cumbridge said. “I really thought growing up she would become an elementary school teacher. But for West Virginia children in some of the more rural areas, the military is the one good chance of getting an education and making something of themselves.”
The lack of opportunity and the military service of her older brother, Gregory Lynch Jr., led Jessica into the Army, her father said. She signed up through the Army’s delayed-entry program before graduating from Wirt County High School in Elizabeth in 2001.
“The Army offered a good deal,” the elder Lynch said.
Gregory Lynch Jr. is stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. “They’re bringing him home now,” the father said.
“They are real close,” he said of his two older children. “They always talk to each other when they were in the state.”
Lynch called his daughter a jokester and a magnet for children. He now fears, he said, that she may never get the chance to have any of her own.
“She really loved small kids,” he said. “That’s what makes it so bad.”
Cumbridge said she would like for the world to know her cousin.
“We have so many Jesses over there right now,” she said. “You turn on the TV and it just breaks your heart. There are a lot of families in West Virginia that have a Jesse, too, and they’re going to be feeling for the Lynch family.”
Wirt County High School Principal Ken Heiney said Jessica Lynch was active at the small school of about 325 students, where she played on the basketball and softball teams and was a member of Future Farmers of America.
“She’s a top-notch young lady,” Heiney said. “Everybody knew Jesse. She was here at Christmastime visiting with former teachers and friends before she was to leave again for the Middle East.”
An assembly was held to inform students of Jessica Lynch’s status Monday, Heiney said most students knew that Lynch was missing in action by the time they arrived at school.
“It’s a small community,” he said. “News like this moves fast.”
A group of faculty and staff members remained at the high school after classes ended Monday to make yellow ribbons for distribution throughout the community.
“The teachers who had Jesse in their classes were really touched by what’s happened,” Heiney said. “She was a pleasure to be around. But this is reality. It really brought the war home.”
Heiney was meeting with teachers after school Monday to plan a special event for Jesse, including distributing yellow ribbons to students and teachers.
Photos
Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19, of Palestine, Wirt County, works as a supply clerk with the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company.
Heroes of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit
giving water to a dehydrated Iraqi. Would they do the same? They do not.
WARNING - LINK TO PORTIONS OF THE INTERVIEW NOT SHOWN ON AMERICAN TV
This shows Americans POWs abused, hurt, with medical care withheld,
unlike the pictures before and after the link.
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