|
Jessica goes home
13/04/2003 10:06 - (SA)
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland - Jessica Lynch, the teenage US private rescued from her Iraqi captors in a daring commando raid, landed safe in the United States on Saturday.
Private Lynch was carried from the C-17 military plane to the applause of a small crowd that had gathered to catch a glimpse of the petite 19-year-old strapped to a hospital gurney.
She arrived from the US airbase in Ramstein, Germany where she was treated for two broken legs, her right arm, leg and ankle, as well as head and spinal injuries, but no gunshot or knife wounds.
The small-town girl from West Virginia who joined the army to earn money for college has become something of national hero in the United States. Her return to the Andrews airbase, just outside Washington, was broadcast live on many television channels. NBC television said it will make her story into a movie.
Lynch's ordeal began on March 23, the third day of the Iraq war, when her unit of the 507th maintenance company took a wrong turn near the southern city of Nasiriyah.
Iraqi forces ambushed her maintenance company. Several of her comrades died, but the female supply clerk fought bravely, until she was captured, survivors said.
She was held in a dismal Iraqi hospital. There, an Iraqi man who had come to visit his wife spotted her, and walked several kilometers to tell US troops.
The man made several of these trips, each time giving US intelligence officers information and drawing them maps of the hospital, showing them where Lynch could be found.
US special forces set up a daring night helicopter rescue for Lynch.
On April 1, US marines launched a diversionary attack as helicopters swooped in, carrying army rangers who set up a perimeter, and navy Seals who stormed the hospital to snatch Lynch away from her captors.
They found the bodies of eight of her comrades who had initially been listed as missing in action.
Following her dramatic rescue, Lynch was taken for treatment to the biggest US military hospital outside the United States at Landstuhl, Germany, where she was joined a week ago by her family from the town of Palestine, West Virginia.
Colonel David Rubenstein, the military commander at the Landstuhl medical center, said Lynch had undergone operations for multiple injuries.
Now back in the United States, Lynch will convalesce at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington, where she will also receive psychological support.
Lynch can then go home to Palestine, West Virginia and perhaps fulfill her dream: completing college so she can become a teacher.
- AFX
|
News
