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Have you heard of Army Sgt. Casaundra Grant? Probably not, because her story has been largely ignored by the press. She's a 25-year-old single mother who lost both of her legs during the Iraq War when she was accidentally pinned under a tank. Her 2-year-old son "prayed for her legs" the first time he saw her stumps. Grant is upbeat and grateful to be alive, reports the San Antonio Express-News, but is this really the way we want to fight our wars, with young mothers coming home in wheelchairs? (By the way, has anyone noticed how many of our women...

GMC bars media from speech by Lynch rescue pilot By Rob Peecher Telegraph Staff Writer MILLEDGEVILLE - Officials at Georgia Military College turned away reporters and photographers who were invited to hear a speech Wednesday by a helicopter pilot involved in the rescue of Jessica Lynch. Col. Jim LeBrun, the principal of GMC's high school, and Janeen Smith, the public relations director for the school, stopped members of the media outside the auditorium with "bad news." LeBrun said Marine Maj. Craig Kopel told them before giving the speech that he would not speak if any members of the media were...

SISTERS IN ARMS In the Lynch case, cute, blonde, young, and single is what counts. It meant no one had to tell unpleasant stories about a single mom leaving children behind to go to war. In the NBC movie Lynch's best friend, single mom Lori Piestewa, who is later killed, has taped pictures of her two young children to the dashboard of the truck she is driving. (Somehow that doesn't sound like a Hollywood gimmick. It rings true with every mom I know. ) This is who we are deliberately and unnecessarily sending into harm's way? Single moms with pictures...

NEW YORK - Television viewers preferred the real Jessica Lynch to the fictional one. An estimated 15.7 million people watched Diane Sawyer interview the former prisoner of war in a 90-minute ABC News special on Tuesday, Nielsen Media Research said Wednesday. That compares to the 14.9 million people who watched NBC's movie, "Saving Jessica Lynch," on Sunday.

The Jessica Lynch story has vividly proven why women in combat (or combat support, "where there is substantial risk of capture") is a really dumb--and in fact destructive--idea. If you agree with the points below, please click here to sign the petition to President Bush. Petition to President George W. Bush Whereas, the nation is proud of the men and women who are serving their country well in the War on Terrorism, and the Commander-in-Chief who leads them; and Whereas, some activists are trying to use the capture, serious injury, and/or death of female enlisted soldiers in a support unit...

Jessica Lynch just completed an interview on The Today Show with Katie Couric. Lynch was accompanied by Rick Bragg, author of her authorized story: "I am a Soldier Too." The bottom line is that very few if any details emerged from the interview. As Bragg (who came across as a decent, smart, down-to-earth, patriotic guy) said, despite endless hours of interviews with Lynch, she simply remembers nothing from the time her Humvee was hit until she woke up in the hospital hours later. She has no recollection of who fired on the Humvee, what it was hit with, how she...

THE Pentagon's shy poster girl for Operation Iraqi Freedom, former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch is now trawling for publicity. What is at stake now is not a nation's morale, boosted by dramatised and exaggerated accounts of her April rescue, but her share in a $1.4 million book deal that looks set to overshadow Veterans' Day. Ms Lynch began the publicity trail with a Sunday night telemovie, Saving Jessica Lynch. Yesterday she and fellow PoW Shoshana Johnson were at Glamour magazine's awards night where they were named Women of the Year. The 20-year-old has also recorded an interview with...

Jessica Lynch on now until 10 PM CST....good interview

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Despite a media blitz, the biography of America's best-known soldier from the Iraq (news - web sites) war, Jessica Lynch, appeared unlikely on Tuesday to translate into big cash as the first day of sales fell short of expectations. After days of magazine covers, TV movies, tabloid tales and television interviews, first-day sales of her authorized biography, "I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story," fell well short of other high-profile books like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites)'s memoir, which had buyers lining up around the block. Not a copy had been...

NEW YORK - Pornographer Larry Flynt claims he bought nude photos of Pfc. Jessica Lynch last month to publish in Hustler magazine, but changed his mind because she is a "good kid ... and a victim of the Bush administration."

SILVER CITY -- There were no emotional tears shed, only a well-known ear-to-ear smile from former prisoner of war Cpl. Joseph Hudson when he was reunited Monday afternoon with two of the Marines who rescued him from captivity. "I'm just ecstatic," Hudson said with enthusiasm. "It's really awesome. These are my two heroes standing next to me." Hudson, Sgt. Sam Overton and Lance Cpl. Curney Russell, dressed in their Class A uniforms, solidified their friendship during Silver City's 30th annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball. The Marine Corps turned 228 years old Monday. Hudson first met Overton and Russell on April...

A skin mag claimed yesterday it has pictures of Iraqi POW Jessica Lynch frolicking topless with male soldiers before she went off to war. A spokesman for the 20-year-old Army private - the subject of Sunday's TV movie on NBC that drew 14.9 million viewers - called the plan by Hustler magazine to publish the purported photos "unspeakable." "Leave it to [Hustler publisher] Larry Flynt to do something like this," said Paul Bogaards of Alfred Knopf, publisher of "I Am A Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story," which is being released today. "Jessica Lynch was left for dead and left...

SOURCES: NY DAILY NEWS PAGE ONE TUESDAY: 'HUSTLER' TOPLESS SNAPS OF JESSICA LYNCH; PAPER SET TO EXPLORE PENDING PUBLICATION OF YOUNG LYNCH PHOTOS... AMBUSHED AGAIN! --Skin mag says it has topless photos of Jessica before she went to Iraq --War hero’s spokesman rips plan to publish pix as “unspeakable.

<p>Nov. 17 issue — The Jessica Lynch blitz isn’t a feel-good celebration for everyone. Lynch miraculously survived the ambush on the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company. First Sgt. Robert Dowdy—scarcely a household name—was killed riding in the military vehicle along with her. His 14-year-old daughter, Kristy, swallows hard at the constant mentions of Jessica’s battle. “Don’t they know it was Dad’s Humvee?” she says. “Don’t they know it was Dad doing stuff?”</p>

Pfc. Jessica Lynch recently was awarded a Bronze Star Medal, a Purple Heart and the POW Medal. The BSM citation reads: “For exemplary courage under fire during combat operations to liberate Iraq, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Private First Class Lynch's bravery and heart persevered while surviving in the ambush and captivity in An Nasiriya.” A BSM for “bravery” and “surviving in the ambush and captivity”! The Army's official After-Action Report said she was in a vehicle that crashed while hauling butt trying to escape an enemy ambush. She was knocked unconscious and woke up at a nearby Iraqi...

November 9, 2003 FRANK RICH Pfc. Jessica Lynch Isn't Rambo Anymore Ah, the dazzling pyrotechnics of "shock and awe." The finality of the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue. The thrill of that re-enactment of "Top Gun." The sense of closure provided by the banner reading "Mission Accomplished." Like all wars of the TV age, the war in Iraq is not just a clash of armies, but a succession of iconic images. Those who control the images, and the narratives they encapsulate, control history. At least until a new reality crashes in. Few of this war's images have had such longevity...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Tonight, NBC will air its made-for-TV movie celebrating Private First Class Jessica Lynch, whose dramatic rescue after her capture is one of the feel-good stories of the US war in Iraq.</p> <p>But some African-Americans don't feel so good about Lynch's story. Instead, they ask: What about Shoshana Johnson?</p>

Book: Lynch Struggled With Iraqi Doctors  NEW YORK - Former prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch screamed and struggled with Iraqi doctors trying to anesthetize her after one of them said they were going to amputate her leg, according to newly released excerpts from her soon-to-be-released authorized biography. The surgery never took place, and Lynch later heard that it was planned so she could be taken more easily to Baghdad, "probably for a propaganda video," according to excerpts of "I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story" being published Monday in Time magazine. The book will be released Tuesday....

WASHINGTON — Tonight NBC will air its made-for-TV movie celebrating Pvt. Jessica Lynch, whose capture and dramatic rescue is the feel-good story of America’s war with Iraq. But some African-Americans don’t feel so good about Lynch’s story. Instead, they ask: What about Shoshana Johnson? Johnson, an Army specialist, belonged to the same 507th Maintenance Company as Lynch. Unlike Lynch, Johnson fought to stave off their Iraqi captors. Like Lynch, she sustained serious injuries. But only Lynch got the headlines, the TV movie, the prime-time television interviews and a biography penned by a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Lynch, in short, got the...

They are real-life survivors whose perils captured the hearts and prayers of millions, not to mention the pixels and ink of the American media. Tonight, they become made-for-TV movie heroines as NBC's Saving Jessica Lynch goes head-to-head with CBS' The Elizabeth Smart Story. Both real-life women-in-jeopardy stories occurred in the spring, and both biopics were fast-tracked by their networks so they would be ready for the November sweeps. In a bizarre but not unprecedented coincidence, both are airing from 8 to 10 tonight. Each network blames the other for the scheduling conflict; neither would step forward and change its air...