Jessica's home

2003-07-22 21:24

Elizabeth, West Virginia - US Army Private Jessica Lynch, the rescued POW who became America's darling in the Iraqi war, returned home to a cheering, yellow-ribbon hero's welcome here on Tuesday.

"It's great to be home," she told a cheering crowd from her wheelchair after being flown into her home town in the West Virginia hills by military helicopter from Walter Reed Army Medical Centre near Washington.

"I want to express my thanks to all those who hoped and prayed for my return," Lynch, 20, told reporters and townsfolk, with family members at her side.

After more than three months of treatment at Walter Reed, Lynch looked pale and exhausted, her voice weak. She appeared to strain to smile.

'I'm a soldier still'

"I'm proud to be a soldier in the army," said the multi-decorated Lynch. "I'm a soldier still. Thank you for this welcome."

On July 21, Lynch was awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and POW medals at Walter Reed by General James B Peeke, the Army Surgeon General.

West Virginia Governor Bob Wise, introducing Lynch, said, "Our entire state of West Virginia has worn a yellow ribbon around our hearts."

Her brother, Army Specialist Greg Lynch Jr, said, "We prayed day in a day out ... after we learned she was missing .... I view her as a role model for myself."

Lynch, whose company was captured in a March 23 firefight in which 11 of her comrades were killed, was rescued on April 1 in a daring night-time Special Forces raid on the Baghdad hospital were she had been held eight days.

She was spirited out of Iraq to a US Army hospital in Germany before being transferred to Walter Reed.

Remembers nothing

Doctors there say she still has no clear recollection of her capture or its prelude, and has diminished function in her lower extremities from her injuries, which included multiple broken bones and wounds.

"Jessica remembers nothing between the ambush and waking up in the Iraqi hospital," Greg Argyros, one of her doctors at Walter Reed, told NBC news earlier on Tuesday. "She remembers the day she was rescued, but the days before that, she has no memory."

Original reports of the ambush suggested that Lynch fiercely fought Iraqi soldiers after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds when her convoy of supply trucks was ambushed March 23 after taking a wrong turn, killing 11 of the 33 soldiers.

- AFX