Welcome home Jessica Lynch.

[Ummmmm Ok]

July 22 — Pfc. Jessica D. Lynch, whose ordeal as a wounded prison of war in Iraq made her a symbol of American bravery and stirred complaints of Pentagon media manipulation, returned to a hero's homecoming in this tiny Appalachian town today.

Private Lynch, whose leg was badly fractured in a vehicle crash just before her capture on March 23, looked briefly stunned as she was wheeled before a bank of television cameras under a huge white tent here. But she seemed to gather strength and poise as she read a short statement, giving most Americans the opportunity to hear her waif-like voice for the first time.

"I've read stories that said when I was captured, I said, `I'm an American soldier, too,' " the 20-year-old Private Lynch said. "Those stories were right. Those were my words. I'm an American soldier, too."

Riding atop the back seat of a Mustang convertible, her blonde tresses tucked under her black Army beret, Private Lynch was then driven by state troopers through streets lined with hundreds of flag-waving residents to her family's home in nearby Palestine.

"She looked as good as the day she left for the war," said a neighbor, Adam Szabo, 36, moments after a smiling Private Lynch passed by. "I could never have gone through what she did. The fear she felt must have been incredible."

The Blackhawk helicopter that brought Private Lynch here from Washington touched down just before 2 p.m. Eastern time. She had been undergoing treatment for multiple broken bones and other injuries at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington since early April.

Awaiting her arrival were marching bands, thousands of well-wishers, and hundreds of signs, many bearing her picture and virtually all carrying the same message: "Welcome Home Jessica."

Private Lynch, who is still recuperating, was taken by motorcade to a park next to the Little Kanawha River, where she spoke publicly for the first time since her story became part of the lore of the Iraq war.

"I would like to say thank you to everyone who hoped and prayed for my safe return," Private Lynch began. "For a long time I had no idea so many people knew I had been missing. But I've read thousands of letters, many of them from children who offered messages of hope and faith."

Private Lynch, who was introduced by Gov. Bob Wise, a Democrat, and Army Specialist Greg Lynch, her brother, added, "I'm proud to be a soldier in the Army."

Earlier this week Private Lynch was awarded a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for her service in the war. But the issue of what exactly happened from March 23, when her company was ambushed near the city of Nassiriya, and April 1, when she was rescued, is the subject of controversy.

Private Lynch became a national hero after news reports quoted unidentified American officials saying she fought fiercely before being captured, firing on Iraqi forces despite sustaining multiple gunshot and stab wounds.

In the end, however, Army investigators concluded she was injured when her Humvee crashed into another vehicle in the convoy of her 507th Maintenance Company vehicles after it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

The Army said the convoy blundered into an ambush after getting lost, and that many of the unit's weapons malfunctioned during the battle.

Video taken during her rescue by American special forces who raided the Iraqi hospital where she was being treated has also been released.

But Iraqi doctors at the hospital have said the Americans faced no resistance during the rescue, and that the danger of the operation had been exaggerated.

Private Lynch even thanked "several Iraqi citizens who helped save my life while I was in their hospital."

Earlier reports said Private Lynch could remember nothing about the ambush or the rescue.

Her parents have said they do not want her to be seen as a hero.

Nevertheless, the national exposure sparked by Private Lynch's capture and rescue has created something of an economic boom for Wirt County, which not only has the smallest population of any county in West Virginia, but also its highest unemployment rate, at 15.1 percent.

The tax base had deteriorated so badly that last year West Virginia voters had to pass a $557,000, three-year levy to save the county from going completely broke.

The run-up to her homecoming today has led to an influx of visitors, including many journalists eager to record Private Lynch's first public words since March, when she was wounded, captured and rescued in Iraq.

The inflow of visitors has created unprecedented traffic in Elizabeth, the county seat of Wirt County, which has about 1,000 residents and is about 225 miles from Washington, D.C.

But since Elizabeth is hardly a commercial hub, much of the financial benefit has flowed into nearby towns. Hotel rooms in Parkersburg, which is about 20 miles away, were booked solid on Monday night, according to The Associated Press.

Despite the joyous nature of the occasion, security was tight throughout the area.

Sniper teams from the West Virginia State Police were positioned along the route of Private Lynch's motorcade, and staff from the state's Division of Natural Resources patrolled the Little Kanawha River, which flows beside the park where Private Lynch appeared.

Officers with bomb-sniffing dogs swept the media tent at the park.

After she addressed the well-wishers and the nation, Private Lynch traveled in a military motorcade to her home in Palestine, a town of about 300 residents some five miles from Elizabeth.

In Palestine, visitors could pick up an envelope with one of 2,000 commemorative stamps postal workers made available on Tuesday morning. More than 100 had been sold by 10 o'clock this morning, Berylann Lewis, the Palestine postmaster, told The Associated Press.

[Ummmmm Ok]

Glad to have you back among us.

This is from all of us here at Dallas-mavs.

[JoshHoward5]

Why do u and the media care about her so much? Other soldiers have been killed, and many wounded. Plus civilians from Iraq. She didn't do anything except ge wounded. Wow, amazing.

[one long blue sock]

Originally posted by: Ummmmm Ok
Pfc. Jessica D. Lynch, whose ordeal as a wounded prison of war in Iraq made her a symbol of American bravery and stirred complaints of Pentagon media manipulation

.

There you go.

[Evilmav2]

So, kids... Ripping on a torture-victim, 19 year old female, former-POW tonight?

Y'all should just give thanks to whatever callow things are important to you, that honorable folks like Jessica Lynch and her brave fellow servicemen are putting their lives on the line to defend y'alls freedom to make snide and ignorant statements impugning the service of your betters and defenders...

During the first Gulf War, both of the two American female POW's whom the insidious Iraqi's captured, were repeatedly beaten and raped over the course of their captivity... and so I will say that I think that anyone who poo-poo's or scoffs at Jessica Lynch's recent experiences in tortured captivity, are either purblind, inexperienced fools, or craven, politically-partisan derelicts...

[u2sarajevo]

Originally posted by: JoshHoward5
Why do u and the media care about her so much? Other soldiers have been killed, and many wounded. Plus civilians from Iraq. She didn't do anything except ge wounded. Wow, amazing.

You have just become the biggest asshole on this board. Excuse my French, but that was uncalled for. Unbelievable.

She didn't do anything except get wounded? try tortured and raped. Yet you minimalize it. unbelievable. I can't believe I read that. Seriously. But there it is. What an asshole.

[dallas_esq]

Well, it is worth caring about Jessica AND all of the other soldiers injured or killed in this occupation.



"I don't need your civil war, it feeds the rich while it burys the poor."

[u2sarajevo]

Originally posted by: dallas_esq
Well, it is worth caring about Jessica AND all of the other soldiers injured or killed in this occupation.



"I don't need your civil war, it feeds the rich while it burys the poor."

Who the hell said that I didn't care about the other soldiers? Did I infer that? Has the media said that? I don't think you have a leg to stand on with that crap.

Try again.

[Rod1975]

Hell of an experience for a kid thats only been in the army barely 6 months.

I think shes the hottest purple heart winner ever......

[Ummmmm Ok]

Originally posted by: JoshHoward5
Why do u and the media care about her so much? Other soldiers have been killed, and many wounded. Plus civilians from Iraq. She didn't do anything except ge wounded. Wow, amazing.

Well first off, did you ever thank that maybe I might have someone over there and that something like this hits me harder than maybe you? I am not going to get into the details, but this could have easily have been my cousin or somebody's else's loved one.

I really don't think you would have made that same statement if that was your wife or girlfriend that was raped, beated, and shot. She might not have done much but shown courage in the face of the utmost terror, and for that, she will always have my sympathy and my heart.

[MavKikiNYC]

"I don't need your civil war, it feeds the rich while it burys the poor."

We don't need your blinded eye; their terrorists win, our innocent die.

We don't need your faux-righteousness; 9/11, the price of short-sightedness.

We don't need your moral superiority; it salves your conscience, and compromises our security.





Catchy, huh.

[cookies_n_mavs]

Welcome home JENNIFER Lynch? [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

[Big Boy Laroux]

ha ha cookies, i was about to say the same thing.

[Ummmmm Ok]

ya'll got me!!! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: Evilmav2
So, kids... Ripping on a torture-victim, 19 year old female, former-POW tonight?

What evidence do you have that she was "tortured"?

[i]Y'all should just give thanks to whatever callow things are important to you,

Exactly, like honesty, truth and respecting American citizens and their intelligence enough not to spread laughable disinformation to them.

[i]that honorable folks like Jessica Lynch and her brave fellow servicemen are putting their lives on the line to defend y'alls freedom to make snide and ignorant statements impugning the service of your betters and defenders...

Defending my freedom? Betters and Defenders? The Iraqi nation has not and most likely never will pose any threat to my freedom. Sending American troops over to "liberate" a Third world country from it's regime and set up shop there has nothing to do with my freedom.

[i]During the first Gulf War, both of the two American female POW's whom the insidious Iraqi's captured, were repeatedly beaten and raped over the course of their captivity... and so I will say that I think that anyone who poo-poo's or scoffs at Jessica Lynch's recent experiences in tortured captivity, are either purblind, inexperienced fools, or craven, politically-partisan derelicts...

I don't know about anything captured female soliders in the first Gulf war but if they were tortured and raped, then my heart goes out to them. But there is no evidence that Jessica Lynch was in any way "tortured" by her captors.

[Epitome22]

[i]
She didn't do anything except get wounded? try tortured and raped. Yet you minimalize it. unbelievable. I can't believe I read that. Seriously. But there it is. What an asshole.

There is no evidence that Jessica Lynch was "tortured" and even moreso there is no evidence, even circumstantial, that she was raped. She did not suffer any gun shot or stab wounds nor did she go down firing rounds from her last clip at approaching Iraqis like some war movie starring Bruce Willis produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. She's a white, blonde haired blue eyed American female solider who's van went the wrong direction and she ended up in a vicious accident. Afterwhich she was taken to an Iraqi medical facility where she was treated as a patient, not as a POW and cared for by the Hospital staff to the best of their limited ability. After that, a fake rescue mission, blank rounds and al, was staged against the hospital. The actors went in unconfronted and facing zero resistance and "liberated" Ms. Lynch from her "Captors" Her injuries were no joke and she probably had to endure some harsh things being in a foreign country and all but I don't think this is neccessarily deserving of a Purple Heart. If I was a former purple heart recipient who really did do some Rambo type ish, I'd be a little bit offended. Chalk one up to the Pentagon, their street team and the Hollywood sensationalism of the "Left Wing" media.

[MavKikiNYC]

Yeah, and those POWs were faking it too.

And all those soldiers who got killled are standing just off set, waiting for Rumsfeld to yell, "Cut!"
That grief that their families showed? SUCKERS! Just wait until next year's Oscars.

If I was a former purple heart recipient...

Fat chance of that. But I'll nominate you for a yellow and brown heart for your chicken-$hit cowardice.

You're too stupid to have the right to have an opinion.

[Chiwas]

I don't know really if the war was a mistake or not. There are good reasons to think it was correct, and others to think the opposite.

BUT

I'm glad that the soldiers can return home, and proud about the soldiers that coudn't do it alive, and I'm not an US American.

Also, I would like that Iraqis don't suffer more and can build a better country. That way all Americans and Iraqis who died, have died really and truly for a good reason.

Thanks God, Jessica Lynch is in home, and alive.

[Epitome22]

[i]



Fat chance of that. But I'll nominate you for a yellow and brown heart for your chicken-$hit cowardice.

You're too stupid to have the right to have an opinion.

Spoken like a True American.


[IMG]http://www.gettopless.com/Pictures/images/Liberal%20pussies_jpg.jpg[IMG]

[MavKikiNYC]

Spoken like a True American.

Oozed as if from a pathologue.

Perhaps you were attemtping in your own way to offer a compliment.

And I'd appreicate it, if I respected your opinion. But I don't.

Why don't you try posting what you stand FOR, rather than merely opposing the overwhelmingly successful U.S.-led overthrow of a ruthless tyarnt and trafficker in terrorism? What do you support--beyond your masturbatively-amusing Bagdad Bob-like attempts at sci-fi comedy?

You probably stand for NOTHING beyond your own self-deluded sense of superiority. And if you actually attempted tangible opposition to what's going on in Iraq, that sense of superiority would gasify inside your bloated corpse just like the sense of invincibility bloats and distends the festering corpses of Uday and Qusay.

Cheers.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally posted by: Epitome22:

If I was a former purple heart recipient who really did do some Rambo type ish, I'd be a little bit offended.

Epitome22, what have you done that would warrant an identification with winners of a purple heart? If you have done something so that you can in some way identify with what they've been through, your statement carries some weight. Otherwise, it really is absurd.

[Drbio]

bah!

[Ummmmm Ok]

Edited due to I am better than that!

[veruca salt]

The language and name calling in this thread is totally inappropriate, and I'm quite dissapointed in some posters
who have gone out of their way and put a great effort into trying and clean this board up in the past.
If you don't agree, you don't agree, i'm sure you can communicate that without having to go in the direction
this thread has.
You can't have one standard for one group and another for the clique that seems to rule over this board.

[Chiwas]

... in some posters who have gone out of their way and put a great effort into trying and clean this board up in the past.

Great point. It's quite right.

You can't have one standard for one group and another for the clique that seems to rule over this board.

It doesn't seem. I does. But in the past, as pointed in the last quote, it ruled almost fine.

Now it seems the members of the clique have a nerv sprike tan, maybe cause the situation of the Mavs. In any way, the overruling is going to spoil this site, if the trend continues.