The new book, “I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story,” is due on bookstore shelves by mid-November, but many are expecting a pretty thin book if the Pentagon’s version of Jessica’s capture - and her resulting amnesia - is to be believed.
Back in early April, the Washington Post headline read, ‘She Was Fighting to the Death,’ then quoted U.S. officials as saying that “Pfc. Jessica Lynch fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed the Army’s 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition.”
Fanning the demand flame for the ‘feel good’ story of an otherwise tumultuous war, The Pentagon then introduced subsequent stories detailing the daring rescue by Special Ops forces that saved Jessica from certain death at the hands of Iraqi military forces.
One month after her rescue, the truth started unfolding.
First the BBC, then USA Today broke the story with headlines such as ‘Forceful rescue of American POW unnecessary,’ then stating in detail how “the U.S. commandos refused a key and instead broke down doors and went in with guns drawn.” [Sounds like a scene from the ‘rescue’ of Elian Gonzalez in Miami].
“They carried away the prisoner in the dead of night with helicopter and armored vehicle backup - even though there was no Iraqi military presence and the hospital staff didn’t resist,” according to eye witnesses interviewed by the Associated Press.
In an effort to diffuse these early reports, CNN stated that doctors treating rescued POW Jessica Lynch were now saying that their patient does not remember the ambush in which she was taken prisoner or what happened immediately afterward. Furthermore, a statement from Walter Reed Army Medical Center said, the doctors “believe the probability of her remembering any events during that time period is very low.”
While treatment continued at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, one U.S. official told FoxNews that “she basically has amnesia, and has mentally blocked out the horrible things we strongly believe she went through.”
“This is a very sad thing about Jessica but it’s not unexpected,” Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld said. Rosenfeld said Lynch is likely suffering from something called total global amnesia, which often occurs after someone endures a traumatic emotional and/or physical stress.
Mary Gooding, of The Daily Journal may have summed it up best: “Jessica has been locked up in a private Walter Reed hospital room with an around-the-clock security detail normally reserved for high brass to ensure that what happened to her as a prisoner of war remains inside her room. Almost daily her cover story changes from amnesia to partial amnesia to more recently: ‘She’s blocked just the ambush event.’”
The West Virginia Herald-Dispatch interviewed Jessica’s father, Greg Lynch, on May 30th, who says Jessica has never had amnesia. While declining to answer questions about the Army investigation of the ambush, Mr. Lynch did say that contrary to published reports, his daughter does not have amnesia. “Her memory is as good as it was when she was home,” her father said. “There really wasn’t no amnesia problems.”
Seems seriously injured enough soldiers who can carry a gun are going back to the front from lack of manpower…Why is she still around?
