Free Republic

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...

PALESTINE, W.Va. (Reuters) - Jessica Lynch, the wounded Army private whose ordeal in Iraq (news - web sites) was hyped into a media fiction of U.S. heroism, was set for an emotional homecoming on Tuesday in a rural West Virginia community bristling with flags, yellow ribbons and TV news trucks. But when the 20-year-old supply clerk arrives by Blackhawk helicopter to the embrace of family and friends, media critics say the TV cameras will not show the return of an injured soldier so much as a reality-TV drama co-produced by U.S. government propaganda and credulous reporters. "It no longer matters...

by 2nd Lt. Gerardo Gonzalez 64th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs 5/2/2003 - OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM (AFPN)  -- After more than 220 sorties, almost 2,000 combat flying hours and more than 6,000 jammed enemy signals in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the airmen of the 41st Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron can call it a day. As part of the 64th Air Expeditionary Wing deployed to Southwest Asia, the 41st EECS played a key role during the war by disrupting Iraqi military communications to support many operations, including the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch. The 41st flies the EC-130H Compass Call aircraft, and...