Gerald L. Atkinson
Copyright 4 July 2003
Introduction
Private Jessica Lynch was a member of the 507th Maintenance Company, a collection of U.S. Army mechanics, supply clerks, and cooks, who were ambushed on 23 March 2003 after becoming separated from a convoy, then lost in the vicinity of Nasiriyah, Iraq during a dust storm, and then ambushed by Iraqi militia. Pvt. Lynch was declared missing for 10 days and was rescued by a daring raid of Special Operations forces and U.S. Rangers during the night of 1 April 2003. This essay deals with the training received by Pvt. Lynch and her cohort of 'combat' support troops, their conduct during the ambush, and the resulting death, captivity, and torture of members of the unit.
Private Jessica Lynch's Military Training
The 507th Maintenance Company was comprised of 120 soldiers, "...mostly mechanics who repair transport vehicles. As such they are usually not involved in skirmishes at the front lines," says The New York Times [1]. In a departure from the basic training given to Army mechanics, supply clerks, and cooks in America's armed forces in the past, the Clinton administration (during the 1990s) watered down the physical and other 'war-fighting' standards for such soldiers in a New Age, a mixed-sex, gender-normed training program that essentially 'feminized' the tail part of the tooth-to-tail military. In a departure from their 'fathers' Army, where clerks, cooks, and mechanics were trained as, and expected to be 'warriors,' capable of fighting off enemy attacks on the often vulnerable 'rear' of an army, the Clintons' Army would become a job-corps, a socialized military substructure that promised equal opportunity to minorities and women. Pvt. Jessica Lynch belonged to just such a 'toothless' unit. [For an essay on the elite mass media's aversion to the military's SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) training during which combat warriors are hardened to potential POW physical and psychological torture, click the link, Mother McGrory's Military. Members of the 507th did NOT have such training before deploying to Iraq.]
Pvt. Lynch, a supply clerk, is reported to have been driving a gas truck in the six-vehicle convoy that became lost and was ambushed at Nasiriyah. In an Email message she sent to her father a few weeks before she was declared missing [2], "She said she was not afraid of the dangers of war but more upset about the notion that young children in Iraq might be used as decoys in a war. 'She had gotten a briefing where they said not to stop for children or anything, but she had this love for the children, you know,' Mr. Lynch said, adding that his daughter hoped to become an elementary school teacher. 'She was afraid that she just couldn't do it. She wouldn't be able to not stop for the kids.'"
While such an attitude is admirable, and expected from America's young girls (Jessica was 19-years-old at the time), it was not the primary characteristic of General George S. Patton's army which crushed vaunted German Army units in Europe during World War II. Indeed, The U.S. Army has undergone drastic changes since that time and the time of other major wars - Korean War and the Vietnam War - in the last half of the 20th century. Fort Bliss, Texas, the home base of the 507th was shocked that Pvt. Lynch and Specialist Shoshana Johnson, were taken captive. Time Magazine reported that [3] "This single mom joined the Army to be a cook. How did she become a POW? ... She is America's first [known at the time - Pvt. Lynch was simply missing] female POW since the Clinton Administration lifted the 'risk rule' in 1994 - in effect letting women take military positions where they might come under enemy fire or be captured...At Fort Bliss, shock came first, then silence. No one on the post could tell the families of the dead and missing what had gone wrong, what a cook, and a computer specialist, a mechanic and an aspiring elementary school teacher were doing in a convoy so close to battle, so unprotected."
Such a question was on the mind of politicians as well. U.S. Congressman Silvester Reyes, whose El Paso district encompasses Fort Bliss, says he was told by a senior officer that [4] "...the lightly armed unit didn't have a chance. It had no combat escort, he says. If that's true, the fault for the convoy's vulnerability would lie not with its leader but with Army commanders." Ah, yes. Now we start to see the specter of blame, the search for scapegoats. In truth, the blame lies with those weak-kneed politicians who allowed, instigated, promoted, and voted for the 'feminization' of America's armed forces.
Seven of the 507th unit's soldiers were killed in the ambush and/or its aftermath. Pvt. Lynch and Specialist Shoshana Johnson were taken captive. The Washington Post reported that [5] "For Fort Bliss, the extent of the 507th Maintenance Company's decimation came as stunning news...Although it is the nation's second-largest Army base in terms of personnel, no soldier from Fort bliss, a base devoted to air artillery defense, had been killed in combat at least since the Vietnam War. The families of the 507th's killed and missing soldiers, as well as those of five who were captured, say military officials have provided virtually no information about what happened to the unit, which apparently became detached from a larger convoy and was beset by enemy forces...There were younger soldiers among the dead...newly enlisted men whose stunned parents had barely digested the fact of their children being in the military. Initial reports said the unit had taken a wrong turn in the dark, but some are suggesting the unit had stopped to repair vehicles and was racing to catch up to the convoy."
The Washington Post also reported that "Although the Pentagon has not confirmed the circumstances of the deaths, some relatives believed the soldiers had been executed by the Iraqis. At the home of Norman and Arlene Walters in Salem, Ore., the parents of Sgt. Donald R. Walters, 33, a recorded telephone message told callers: 'We regret to inform you we have received official confirmation of the death of our son, Sgt. Donald Walters, who was murdered while held captive by Iraqi forces of Saddam Hussein.'"
Specialist Shoshana Johnson's parents [6] "...In a family steeped in the military...knew their daughter, even as an Army cook, might be at risk in the war. But they were surprised her supply convoy came under attack. 'This is not the type of thing you'd expect in a supply convoy,' Nikki Johnson said. 'Yes, you'd expect disruptive fire from a sniper or artillery, but you don't expect for a supply line to get ambushed without any kind of attack on the main element. So we're confused and surprised, though I wouldn't say angry.'" Nikki is Shoshana's younger sister. She, along with her family, is quoted in NEWSWEEK Magazine as saying [7], "...[Shoshana] never expected to find herself on the front lines." It is clear that members, even officers, in the 'tail' of the New Age Army have not a clue as to the history of warfare - including the dangers involved in guerrilla warfare (nontrinitarian warfare). Of course, nontrinitarian war is the kind we are likely to face in the future. A war on terrorism of global reach.
Consequently, if is understandable that millions of other Americans are clueless in terms of the mortal and other dangers involved in warfare. This is especially true in the families of those who are killed in war. For example, Patricia Roberts, the mother of Spc. Jamaal Addison, who was killed in the ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company, places blame for her son's death in mundane political terms [8]. "'Bush is sending other people's children to war,' she said. 'He is telling people how honorably they might die. I would rather my son be a coward and in my arms than Bush's hero.'" Her husband took a different tack. "[His son] enlisted in the Army 18 months after graduating from...high school in 2000. 'He did not join to fight,' he said. 'He realized his obligations. But he wasn't a fighter.'" And of course, when we send such soldiers into battle - even as support troops - the non-fighters become fodder.
A documentary film, 'Saving POW Lynch,' was shown on the Discovery Channel on 30 April 2003. This film included footage and commentary on the military training that Pvt. Jessica Lynch and her fellow soldiers received at Fort Bliss. Her Superior there, Sergeant Shirley Atma describes Jessica Lynch as "...a solid part of the 507th. [She is] tough-minded, full of grit and determination - all 5 feet 4 inches and 105 pounds of her." Of course, to most of us this conveys an image (buttressed by photos of Jessica) of a little girl -- a tiny, skinny little girl who has absolutely no business anywhere near a combat zone. The image is nearly the same as one sees on TV of little early-teenage Iraqi boys running in the streets after the liberation of Baghdad. They are about the same height, build, and weight as Jessica Lynch.
During the film, Peter Baker, an embedded reporter from the Washington Post is portrayed as [9] "...one of the few reporters to talk with the POWs themselves about what happened..." during the ambush of the 507th. Baker intones, "It was all new. The 507th was heading into the area, trailing well behind the combat troops they were due to re-supply. The unit of cooks, maintenance clerks, and mechanics were not equipped or trained to handle what they were about to encounter."
During this same film, Major Stephen Alcorn, a Fort Bliss combat instructor explains that "Maintenance Company's main job is to fix vehicles, to keep the Army running." The camera shifts to a voiceover of the female moderator who quotes Major Alcorn as saying, "Those in the 507th would have been trained to get out of the line of fire (images appear on the screen of armed soldiers running and falling on their stomachs, aiming their weapons through small bumps of sand cover) as fast as they can." The major then says, "What they are going to do if they get ambushed - they are going to put out as much firepower and lead as they can (images appear onscreen of a soldier on the ground firing a machine gun) in the general direction of the enemy while they are trying to maneuver to get out of the area. They are not equipped to close with and destroy the enemy as a combat unit is (pictures of soldiers slithering off from their sand shelters)."
The film then shifts to the scene of a platoon of Iraqi militia, marching in precision lock-step, fully dressed in white garb - their eyes barely visible through slits between their white face masks and white turbans. Each is fitted with a wide black belt that covers one-half of the chest. The female narrator intones, "The 507th is in territory allegedly held by the Fedayeen, the toughest and most loyal of Saddam's guerrilla forces." This image, compared to the image of the tiny, clearly feminine Jessica Lynch provides stark contrast of the razor-sharp Fedayeen and the Clintons' Army of female 'warriors' bent on equal job opportunity in the socialized 'tail' of America's armed forces.
Later in the same film, we are dumped into the midst of a training exercise of mixed-sex 'combat' training at Fort Bliss with soldiers in camouflage uniforms digging in the sand, carrying rifles, laying on the ground in simulated 'combat' positions. The female moderator says, "Back at Fort Bliss, there were prayers and hope that their training would prepare the captured soldiers of the 507th for what they must face." The voice of Major Stephen Alcorn tells us that "Nothing we do in training can replicate being a prisoner of war (female soldiers are pictured attempting to run in the sand and fall to the ground in a fighting position with their rifles raised in front of them). However, we can provide the mental training, the toughness to realize that as bad as things get, I'm still an American soldier. I can be true to my country. I can be true to my unit. I can be true to myself no matter what the enemy throws at me."
Before the soldiers of the 507th surrendered, one of them told Peter Baker, "It was like being in a movie - like Black Hawk Down. They didn't have a chance." Of course, the difference was that the survivors of the Mogadishu ambush in Somalia, including the wounded, fought their way out and did not surrender. Some even survived the Mogadishu Mile run to safety as Aideed's militia fired at them with AK-47s, grenade launchers, and machine guns (the same weapons used by the Fedayeen against the 507th). That is the difference between combat 'warriors' and a rag-tag bunch of cooks, clerks, and mechanics in the 'tail' of today's New Age Volunteer Force. The latter gave up after a 15-minute firefight.
This is the era of a 'feminized' military, where troops in the support 'tail' undergo mixed-sex basic and 'combat' training for which the training standards are gender-normed to allow for the physical shortcomings of the females. [View the documentary film, 'Women Warriors,' A&E-TV, 10:00 p.m., 4/18/03 to learn that even the physical 'separate but equal' basic training in the Marine Corps lowers training qualifications for female Marines.] But one concomitant consequence of lowered physical standards in mixed-sex training in the Army is that the reduced standards are applied to the men as well. The men almost invariably complain that the training regimen is much 'softer' and less demanding than they had expected. When the U.S. Army acceded to radical feminist demands for mixed-sex training, the result is what we saw in the ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company. Officers who cut and run, leaving their troops to fend for themselves when ambushed. Men and women who don't want to fight, can't fight and surrender after a 15-minute firefight.
Compare this ambush to one that was encountered by part of a Marine supply company which was ambushed near Nasiriyah (the same general area that the 507th suffered its ambush), possibly by the same Fedayeen militia that ambushed the 507th. The Marines do not undergo mixed-sex basic training. The men and women are trained separately in basic training but females are not given the rigorous combat training that male Marines are required to undertake. The women's basic training is gender-normed but, since the men do not take this reduced-standard training, it does not affect the men. They are required to undergo the same tough, rigorous, demanding physical and mental training that has been the standard for Marines since their inception. As a result, male Marines are combat soldiers, 'warriors,' in every respect and are capable of fighting the enemy, even if they are assigned to a combat support unit.
The Washington Post described the ambush of a Marine support unit near Nasiriyah. The supply company was shuttling ammunition and food to infantry units [10]. "They were hit after a command post they had set up at an abandoned gas station came under fire from nearby buildings. These marines who spend their days repairing trucks and cooking meals, suddenly found themselves ducking mortar fire, grenades and machine gun fire. 'We weren't infantrymen,' said First Lt. James Uwins, who described the attack in which he was wounded by shrapnel. 'We were cooks, bakers, and candlestick makers.' On the night of March 25, however, the supply company of the Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, became a fighting force. Lieutenant Uwins and his gunnery sergeant, Bill Hale, described a desperate encounter, with grenades and mortar fire raining down on their compound from three sides. Several marines scrambled to the top of earthen walls around the gas station to return fire. Others huddled between their trucks and a line of corroded oil tanks, trying not to get hit. Tracer fire crisscrossed the inky sky, accompanied by the harsh whistle of bullets."
"The attack was a fearful end to a day that had already been rife with problems. The supply company had pulled into the gas station in late morning, after staying up most of the previous night, fixing vehicles that had broken down or been stuck in the mud during a torrential rain storm. After the marines had established machine gun posts on the four corners of the compound, Lieutenant Uwins and Sergeant Hale, who had scarcely slept in three days, began thinking about getting some rest. Suddenly, a rocket-propelled grenade blew through the passenger-side door of an armored truck parked next to them. Shrapnel tore into Lieutenant Uwins's legs, peppering him up to his flak jacket. 'The shrapnel in the leg took me out of the fight,' he said. 'I was pretty much a bystander after that.'"
"Sergeant Hale, who was not injured in that explosion, managed to crawl behind a small concrete wall next to the tanks. He applied a tourniquet to the left arm of one of his men, who has also been cut by shrapnel. He and six other marines were pinned down by the gunfire. Sergeant Hale spotted a possible escape route, leading to a sheltered area on the south side of the compound. But it required leaping two small concrete walls and sprinting through an exposed area. He sent his men in pairs, as other marines laid down a wall of covering fire."
"Then it was his turn. 'When the last man got across, he gave me a thumbs up and said, 'Gunny, we're clear, we got you.' Sergeant Hale took a deep breath and raced toward his mates. After 25 feet, he heard a deafening explosion. 'The next thing I know, I'm airborne,' he said. 'I was playing Superman for about 15 to 20 seconds. Landed flat on my back.' After staring skyward for a few seconds, Sergeant Hale rolled over and tried to stand up, but collapsed. Two of his men dragged him to safety."
By the time the troops were able to call in an artillery strike to put down the Iraqi attack, 31 of the 120 marines who had been trapped at the gas station were wounded. Miraculously, none died." It is crystal clear that the robust training that the male marines had received in boot camp and in combat training had saved the day. They did not just fire into the air attempting to fend off the ambushers. They used the coordinated teamwork that they learned during training to lay down directed fire at the enemy. This enabled them to survive without either capture or death. Though comprised of just 'cooks, bakers, and candlestick makers,' and not infantrymen, they fought as hard and effectively as had their forebears in the Marine Corps. Thankfully, the Marines had preserved their fighting ethos in spite of the efforts of the radical feminists in the Clinton Administration to 'feminize' their training.
While the comparison of the two separate ambushes of support units, that of the 507th and the Marines of the Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, provides a stark contrast in their ability to withstand the onslaught of the same Fedayeen militia, there is an even stronger fighting ethos in the infantry combat troops. Both the Army combat soldiers and the Marines were 'warriors' who came there to fight and kill the enemy. They were trained for that role and they carried it out. Their story is much different than that of the support units which were ambushed. Their rugged training assured a different ethos.
Peter Maass, an embedded reporter for the New York Times with the Third Battalion, Fourth Marines tells the story . He explains that the war in Iraq seen on TV was not the real war seen by combat infantrymen. Their war, he explains [11], was one of "...raw military might, humans killing humans. The Third Battalion, Fourth Marines was one of the rawest expressions of that might. Based in Twentynine Palms, Calif., it specializes in desert warfare, and its forces number about 1,500 troops, equipped...with about 30 Abrams tanks and 60 armored assault vehicles, backed up with whatever artillery and aircraft were required for its missions, like 155-millimeter howitzers and Cobra gunships and fighter jets."
"On the way to Baghdad, the battalion also fought fierce but limited battles...On April 6, three days before the fall of Baghdad, the battalion arrived at the Diyala bridge, a major gateway into the southeastern sector of the city. The bridge crosses the Diyala River, which flows into the Tigris. Once across its 150-yard span, the Third Battalion would be only nine miles from the center of Baghdad. The bridge was heavily defended on the north side by both Republican Guard and irregular forces, and the battle to seize and cross it took two days. It was, in retrospect, a signal event in the war, a vivid example of the kind of brutal, up-close fighting that didn't get shown on cable TV."
"The Third Battalion had a consistent strategy as it moved toward Baghdad: kill every fighter who refused to surrender. It was extremely effective. It allowed the battalion to move quickly. It minimized American casualties. But it was a strategy that came with a price, and that price was paid in blood on the far side of the Diyala bridge."
Lt. Col. Bryan McCoy, the battalion commander, who was born into the military and has lived in it for his entire life. Maass explains, "When I spoke to him on the southern side of the Diyala bridge soon after the battalion arrived there...he was in a serene mood. 'Things are going well,' he said, 'Really well.' When Colonel McCoy told you things were going well, it meant his marines were killing Iraqi fighters. That's what was happening as we exchanged pleasantries at the bridge. His armored Humvee was parked 30 yards from the bridge. If one of the Republican Guard soldiers on the other side of the bridge had wanted to shout an insult across the river, he would have been heard - were it not for the fact that Colonel McCoy's battalion was at that moment lobbing so may bullets and mortars and artillery shells across the waterway that a shout could never have been heard, and in any event the Iraqis had no time for insults before dying. The only sound was the roar of death."
"'We're moving [our] tanks back a bit to take care of them over there,' he explained, nodding to his right, where hit-and-run Iraqi fighters were shooting rocket-propelled grenades at his men, without success. Colonel McCoy's assessment was Marine blunt: 'We're killing 'em.' We're killing them like its going out of style. They keep reinforcing, those Republican Guards, and we're killing them as they show up. We're running out of ammo.'"
"For [Colonel McCoy], as for other officers who won the prize of front-line commands, this war was not about hearts and minds or even liberation. Those were amorphous concepts, not rock-hard missions. For Colonel McCoy and the other officers who inflicted heavy casualties on Iraqis and suffered few of their own, this war was about one thing: killing anyone who wished to take up a weapon in defense of Saddam Hussein's regime, even if they were running away. Colonel McCoy refers to it as establishing 'violent supremacy.' 'We're here until Saddam and his henchmen are dead,' he told me at one point during his march on Baghdad. 'It's over for us when the last guy who wants to fight for Saddam has flies crawling across his eyeballs. Then we go home. It's smash-mouth tactics. Sherman said that war is cruelty. There's no sense in trying to refine it. The crueler it is, the sooner it's over.'"
"The battle for the Diyala bridge lasted for two days...Eventually, the battalion killed most of the Republican guard fighters, or at least pushed them back from their dug-in positions on the northern side, and McCoy decided that it was time to try a crossing. The men of the Third Battalion moved across Diyala bridge, 'dismounted,' that is, on foot. It was a tableau from Vietnam, or even World War II; grunts running and firing their weapons in front of them. This was, as McCoy described it, 'blue-collar warfare.'"
In contrast to the Clintonized support 'tail' of the Army, the 507th Maintenance Company, McCoy's combat Marines - all men - were trained in the 'warrior ethos.' Maass explains why this is so important. "Battle is confusion. If a military unit is well trained and well led, the confusion can be minimized, but it can never be eliminated. Split-second decisions - whether to fire or not fire, whether to go left or right, whether to seek cover behind a house or in a ditch, whether the enemy is 200 yards ahead or 400 yards ahead - these kinds of decisions are often made on the basis of fragmentary and contradictory information by men who are sleep-deprived or operating on adrenaline; by men who fear for their lives or for the lives of civilians around them or both; by men who rely on instincts they hope will keep them alive and not lead them into actions that they will regret to their graves. When soldiers make their split-second decisions, they do not know the outcome." Indeed, proper training at the highest physical and mental standards that are possible, is the key to winning battles and assuring victory. The combat Marines and Army infantry troops - all men - achieved that success in the war against Iraq.
The Ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company
In stark contrast with the story of the Marine supply company which was ambushed at Nasiriyah and the 507th, the Marine Officer in charge stayed with his troops, organized a tactical exit, and fought their way to safety without anyone being captured or killed. This is how the Marine 'cooks, bakers, and candlestick makers' were trained - all men, together - to fight their way out of danger with coordinated combat tactics taught in their basic and advance training regimens.
The officers in the 507th Maintenance Company (also cooks, supply clerks, and mechanics), ambushed at Nasiriyah, did not perform as admirably. According to the New York Times [12], "...soldiers of a lightly armed maintenance unit were traveling [northward] in a convoy of 15 vehicles before dawn...The unit had orders to supply an anti-aircraft battery in the area. At a certain point the convoy took a wrong turn, mistakenly leaving [the highway]. As the convoy moved toward the first of several bridges into town, the Americans realized their mistake...[They] made a hasty U-turn, but the road behind them was blocked by two buses, and the convoy came under attack from two Iraqi T-55 tanks and a company-sized unit of foot soldiers believed to be Fedayeen irregulars, not Iraqi Army troops. In the clash that followed, the first two cars of the convoy - a Humvee and a recovery vehicle - were separated from the other 13 vehicles."
And now comes the important part. The officer in charge cut and ran away from his troops, leaving them 'leaderless' in the face of the ambush. After all, the training of the men in the 507th had been gender-normed such that the men had to meet only the reduced physical and mental standards of the women in their mixed-sex basic and 'combat' training. Their combat training had consisted of a tactic of 'cut and run,' only firing indiscriminately toward the enemy - not to organize any coordinated tactical maneuver. The New York Times (NYT) described this scene. "An Army captain in the Humvee - the commander of the convoy - drove the vehicle through the gunfire, and some of those aboard were wounded. According to one account, the officer drove nearly four miles before being forced to stop because his front tires had been shot out." Presumably, he would have driven all the way back to Kuwait, leaving his soldiers without 'combat direction,' if not for the damaged front tires.
The NYT describes what followed. "A unit of American marines on patrol saw the disabled vehicle and called in a medevac helicopter, which evacuated the officer and his soldiers. Some of the soldiers were seriously wounded, one of them shot in the jaw. The marines resumed their patrol and within minutes came upon four more American vehicles, two riddled with bullets and two on fire. No Americans were in sight. As a result, the Army listed the occupants of those vehicles as missing in action. The fate of the other vehicles and their occupants was unclear. [Early reports had said that] seven soldiers had been killed but their bodies not recovered, five had been taken prisoner, four were wounded but made it back to American lines, six others had returned unhurt and three were missing."
The soldiers who were left behind to fend for themselves were disorganized and disoriented. Sgt. James Riley, a 31-year-old...[was] the senior soldier present...[They] still can't understand how they ventured by mistake into Nasiriyah...The brunt of the city's defense was directed at the members of the 507th. The Washington Post reported the scene [13]. "'It wasn't a small ambush,' Riley said. 'It was a whole city. And we were getting shot from all different directions as we were going down the road - front, rear, left, right.' At one point, Riley called out to a wounded comrade but got no reply and could not help as bullets rained past. 'There was nowhere to go,' he said. 'It was like something you'd see in a movie,' said [Pfc. Patrick] Miller, who tried to place rounds one by one into the chamber of his rifle after it jammed."
Peter Baker, in the documentary, 'Saving POW Lynch,' states that [14] "They couldn't get away because everywhere as far as they went they kept getting more and more people coming at them. They felt like they were just coming out of the homes from all around to shoot at them...Everywhere they looked there were Iraqi's with guns shooting at them and they felt completely trapped..." The female narrator of the film intones, "The soldiers fight as well as they can. But as one of the survivors would later say, 'They didn't have a chance.' In the end, Sgt. James Riley, the highest ranking soldier there, gives the order to surrender."
The New York Times relates that [15], "Outgunned and surrounded, the surviving soldiers threw down their weapons and raised their hands. Iraqi fighters thronged around them, pushing them down, kicking and beating some of them. Miller recalled being hit in the back with sticks. They were bound and blindfolded."
Private Jessica Lynch's Injuries
The first reports [16] [17] of the daring rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch by Special Operations forces (Navy Seals backed up by Army Rangers) did not provide details of her injuries. It was apparent, however, from TV footage of her being carried by stretcher down flights of stairs in the Iraqi hospital where she was found that they were extensive. She was obviously very weak and in some pain.
The Washington Post was the first to provide some details, but the report was fraught with unsubstantiated descriptions of Pvt. Lynch's 'heroics.' It did, however, report (later found questionable) [18] that "...Lynch, the 19-year-old supply clerk...sustained multiple gunshot wounds..." and that "...[one military officer briefed on the operation] said that Special Operations forces found what looked like a 'prototype' Iraqi torture chamber in the hospital's basement, with batteries and metal prods."
The same day, The Washington Times reported on the rescue operation [19]. "Helicopter-borne commando units from all four services slipped behind Iraqi lines and seized Pfc. Lynch from the Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah under cover of darkness...nine days after she had been listed as missing when her unit made a wrong turn and fell into an Iraqi ambush. Kerry Sanders, an MSNBC reporter traveling with U.S. troops said the raid received considerable help from Iraqi citizens. The forces found a bloodied U.S. uniform, of a kind used by female soldiers, when they seized another hospital, used by Iraqi forces, in Nasiriyah last week Mr. Sanders said. They also learned that the soldier had been shot in the leg, he said."
After describing the role played by an Iraqi civilian in the daring rescue, the Times reported that "Separately, an English-speaking resident of the city approached Mr. Sanders and told him that a female U.S. soldier was being held at the hospital. The resident said, 'Please make sure the people in charge know that she's being tortured,' Mr. Sanders reported. MSNBC reported that Pfc. Lynch originally was held at the nearby hospital where Marines found the bloody uniform. They also found a room with a bed and large battery next to it, indicating that it had been used as a torture chamber."
One day later, both USA TODAY and The Washington Post reported that the civilian lawyer who helped rescue Pvt. Lynch had seen an Iraqi deliver two open-handed slaps to Lynch's face. The Post's report said [20], "Inside the room with her was an imposing Iraqi man, clad all in black. Mohammed watched as the man slapped the American woman with his open palm, then again with the back of his hand."
On the same day, The Washington Post reported on conversations with the Lynch family back home in West Virginia. They asked the family the extent of Jessica's injuries [21]. "Doctors [at a military hospital in Germany] completed successful back surgery today on Jessica Lynch, 19, to repair a fracture that was pinching a nerve and causing her to lose feeling in her feet, the family said. On Friday, doctors were planning to repair fractures in her right arm and in both legs, they said. While offering few new details, the family did contradict initial reports that Lynch was shot and stabbed after her unit [was ambushed]...The parents said that they did not know how Lynch suffered the broken bones and that they had no other details about her treatment by her Iraqi captors. 'They have no idea what caused [the fractures],' [her father] said in recalling his conversation with a doctor."
Two days later, clearer details of Pvt. Lynch's injuries surfaced. The Washington Post reported that [22] "Lynch is now receiving medical care at the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Doctors have found fractures in her right arm, both legs and her right ankle and foot, as well as injuries to her head and spine. She has undergone a back operation and surgery to repair broken bones."
That same report also shed some light on Pvt. Lynch's mental state during her captivity. "When the Americans entered the building, they persuaded a doctor to take them upstairs to Lynch's room. There, they found the scared and badly injured soldier. She 'seemed to be in a fair amount of pain,' said [Air Force Maj. Gen. Victor] Renuart [the Central Command's director of operations]. As Lynch was being carried out of the hospital on a stretcher, "Lynch reached up and grabbed the hand of the army doctor. 'Please don't let anybody leave me,' she beseeched him. For the entire trip, as the helicopter shuttled her to a military airplane, which in turn would take her to a field hospital, she kept hold of the doctor's hand. 'It was clear,' Renuart said, 'she knew where she was and she didn't want to be left anywhere in the hands of the enemy.'"
A more detailed account from two Iraqi doctors who treated Pvt. Lynch is reported in The New York Times [23]. "Suffering from broken bones and gunshot wounds, [Pvt. Lynch] was handed over to physicians at Nasiriya General Hospital by the Iraqi military doctors who treated her in the field. 'We received her in the casualty unit,' said Dr. Houssona, [24]. 'She had a fractured leg, a gunshot wound and a pulmonary edema. She was barely conscious and extremely psychologically upset.' I said, Hello? What's your name?' Dr. Houssona recalled. 'Her first words were, 'Please, don't hurt me,' She was terribly afraid.'" Pvt. Lynch was kept alone in a single room...But as shelling and shooting intensified near Nasiriya, her doctors moved her to a crowded ward. It was better to hide her in plain sight, they said. After all, as the Americans drew near, Iraqi intelligence agents were certain to take her away."
"'When they showed up, I had the nurses tell them she was dead,' Dr. Houssona said. They asked the nurses, 'so where is the cadaver?' They told them so many people had died at the hospital that we simply threw the bodies out the door." Is it no wonder that Jessica Lynch was so 'terribly afraid?' She had obviously suffered at the hands of the notorious Uday Hussein's Fedayeen.
About a week later, NEWSWEEK Magazine reported that [24] "...amid the joy [of Lynch's rescue] there were unsettling questions bout Lynch's condition and her treatment in captivity. Her injuries included fractures to both legs, her right arm and spine, and after undergoing several operations last week she developed a fever that reached 104 [degrees]. Exactly how she was injured, though, remained a mystery; the commander of the hospital in Landstuhl, Germany told reporters...that 'she was not stabbed; she was not shot.' Later that day though, surgeons discovered that she had been shot - and, according to a family spokesman in West Virginia, Dan Little, her wounds were 'consistent with low velocity firearms.' The unpleasant implication was that she might have been shot after she'd been captured. The mystery grew when CNN reported that Marines searching the home of a Baath Party official in An Nasiriya had discovered Lynch's dog tag."
It is noteworthy that the Iraqi doctors who treated Pvt. Lynch in the Nasiriyah hospital told reporters that [25] "...she suffered fractures to her arms and lower limbs and a 'small skull wound,' sustained when her vehicle overturned." Comparing this to the list of injuries treated by doctors in U.S. military hospitals [26], "...a head wound, spinal injury, and fractures to her right arm and both legs, and to her right ankle and foot..." it is clear that the spinal fracture and broken bones in both legs were not treated by Iraqi physicians. Could these injuries have been the result of torture by the Saddam Fedayeen?
Even Michael Getler, the liberal-left ombudsman at The Washington Post, is suspicious of the treatment accorded Jessica Lynch by the Saddam Fedayeen after her capture and residence in the Nasiriyah hospital. He asks questions that many Americans want answered [27]. "...Col David Rubenstein, commander of the Army hospital in Germany where Lynch was taken, was widely quoted as saying that medical evidence did 'not suggest that any of her wounds were caused by either gunshots or stabbing [as previous reports indicated]...a Post story from the Lynch home in West Virginia quoted her father, Greg Lynch, Sr., as saying, 'The doctor has not seen any of this. There's no entry [wounds] whatsoever.'...In the next days, however, the story took another turn...The Post published an Associated Press story from Germany reporting that 'the medical staff' at the hospital said in a statement that 'after more closely examining those wounds, there is a possibility they were caused by a low velocity, small caliber weapon.' There was no name associated with the statement." This, of course, opens the door to speculation that these wounds could have been the result of a kind of torture. After all, the Iraqis who were fighting in the war were not armed with 'small caliber weapons.'
The most detailed account of Pvt. Lynch's injuries is reported by the Washington Post [28]. "Lynch is in stable condition in a private room in intensive care after undergoing three operations. Her most serious injury involves a vertebra in her lower back. She also has fractures in four places: her upper right arm, upper left leg, lower left leg, and right ankle and foot. The hospital said it wasn't clear how Lynch suffered the injuries. gunshots from a low-velocity, small-caliber weapon may have caused one or more of them, but no bullets or metal fragments have been found."
Getler attempts to defend the early report by Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post by suggesting that her sources in whom she had confidence had access to sensitive internal intelligence reporting about the rescue. The official silence about Lynch, they suggest, may be due to intelligence classification, possible war crime investigations or other issues... What really happened is not clear...Let's hope an authoritative public account emerges..." Of course, this challenge will be forgotten as America revels in the stirring story of the heralded tiny girl-soldier from West Virginia, the Mythical Modern American War Hero.
Iraqi Torture Methods
One of the first reports of Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue included the grisly discovery of the remains of several soldiers from her 507th Maintenance Company. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said that two bodies were found in the Nasiriyah hospital in a morgue and nine others were buried outside in a shallow mass grave. Asked whether there were signs of torture, Ben. Brooks said [29] "We don't have any information, to my knowledge, that there were indications of torture devices. I have not seen reports that would account for that. It may be too early for me to say conclusively that there were or were not." It is clear, however, that the question was foremost in the media and the public's mind."
This conversation came after the Arab satellite television network, Al Jazeera, showed a videotape of five captured members of the 507th and bodies of several others. The New York Times reported that [30] "Some of the Army mechanics captured on Sunday after they took a wrong turn in the Iraqi town of Nasiriya were apparently executed by their captors, probably in front of townspeople, American officials charged tonight...It is unclear how many of the seven soldiers were executed, rather than killed in fighting, as the Iraqis contend...[The Al Jazeera] videotape...showed images of at least four bodies; some appeared to have bullet wounds to the head. 'When the full story comes out, people will be outraged,' said one senior military official."
The Washington Times reported that [31] "Seven American prisoners of war have been taken from southern Iraq to Baghdad and are under the direct control of people close to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Bush administration officials said yesterday...'What has surprised me most, quite honestly, is that in nearly six days of ground fighting that the forces that are loyal to Saddam Hussein have already committed so many war crimes,' said Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace this week on CNN. 'They have executed prisoners of war.' Prime minister Tony Blair said in Washington this week that Fedayeen paramilitary troops around Basra had executed two captured British soldiers."
The Times report also reveals that "Saddam's Fedayeen paramilitary troops took five U.S. soldiers captive Sunday after ambushing their lost supply convoy in Nasiriyah, in southern Iraq. Military officials believe that Fedayeen troops executed two or three soldiers at the scene with gunshots to the forehead. Iraqi forces videotaped their bodies and the five surviving captives in a hospital that was turned into a military command center before they were taken to Baghdad...Iraq has a history of mistreating POWs. It took 23 American captives during the Desert Storm campaign in 1991 and mistreated all of them. Former prisoners recounted how they were beaten repeatedly, then were forced to read statements broadcast on Arab television."
Given this unfolding story of summary executions of POWs and past history, it was only natural that America was hungry for knowledge of the treatment of Pvt. Jessica Lynch while held prisoner in the hospital in Nasiriyah - under the control of the Saddam Fedayeen. There is also a historical record on Islamic doctrine on the treatment of prisoners of war. Developed over centuries of conflict, it is brutal. It is savage. It is uncompromising. It is final.
Dr. Andrew G. Bostom is an associate professor of medicine at Brown University. He has written on the subject of Islam's attitude toward captives. He quotes from the Arabic document, 'Abu Yusuf Ya'qub Le Livre de l'impot foncier,' translated from Arabic and annotated by Edmond Fagnan, Paris, Paul Geuthner, 1991, pages 301-302. As introduction, he quotes Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Ahmad al-Hadithi as saying that the already brutalized U.S. POWs captured in southern Iraq [32] "...would be treated according to the principles of Islam." Bostom informs us that "Unfortunately, this statement is not reassuring at all."
He tells us why. "The classical Baghdadian jurists Abu Yusuf (from the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, d.798) and al-Mawardi (a Shafi'ite jurist, d.1058) were prolific, respected scholars who lived during the so-called Islamic 'Golden Age' of the Baghdadian-Abbasid Caliphate. They wrote the following, based on their interpretations of the Koran and Sunna (i.e., the recorded words and deeds of Muhammad):
'...that one can even...finish off the wounded, or kill prisoners
who might prove dangerous to the Muslims...As for the prisoners
who are led before the imam, the latter has the choice, as he pleases,
of executing them, or making them pay a ransom, for the most advantageous
choice for the Muslims and the wisest of Islam. The ransom imposed upon
them is not to consist either of gold, silver, or wares, but is only in exchange
for Muslim captives...'
'As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial
action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks;
the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and
manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners;
and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them [33].'
Bostom continues. "Indeed, such odious 'rules' were iterated by all four classical schools of Islamic jurisprudence across the vast Muslim empire. Specifically, Ibn Abi Zayd Al_Qayrawani (d.996), head of the North African Maliki school at Qairuan, and the famous Syrian jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d.1328) of the Hanbali school under the Mameluks, wrote the following:
'There is no inconvenience to kill white non-Arabs who have been taken prisoner.'
[Another Arab scholar] wrote:
'If a male unbeliever is taken captive during warfare or otherwise, i.e. as a result of a
shipwreck, or because he has lost his way, or as a result of a ruse, then the imam may
do whatever he deems appropriate: killing him, enslaving him, releasing him, or setting
him free for a ransom consisting of either property or people. This is the view of most
jurists and it is supported by the Koran and the Sunna.'
Bostom observes that "The grisly video aired by Al-Jazeera and many other Arab media outlets suggests that, indeed, the 'primary option,' i.e. execution, may very well have been exercised with regard to those U.S. POWs [from the 507th] captured in southern Iraq.
The images of the dead and captured American soldiers were apparently taken by Iraqi state television [34], "...a yellow Iraq TV microphone could be seen in footage. An opening clip showed a tan U.S. military supply truck towing a tan potable water tank that an announcer said was stopped on a road near Nasiriyah. The body of a U.S. serviceman lay on the road behind the truck. The victim, who appeared to be a black male, wore a tan battle uniform and helmet. The footage did not show his injuries. Bloodstains were visible on the truck. A second clip showed four dead male soldiers laying on the floor of a room identified by the announcer as a makeshift morgue. The camera panned over the bodies, showing close-up shots of their wounds..."
The al-Jazeera broadcast of the Iraqi video produced a deluge of response by the American media on the possibility of our POWs being mistreated by the Iraqis. Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, confessed that they had knowledge of Iraqi brutality toward one of their employees in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf Storm War [35]. "...in the mid-1990s one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's...suspicion that [Eason] was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief...The secret police terrorized Iraqis working for international press services who were courageous enough to try to provide accurate reporting. Some vanished, never to be heard from again. Others disappeared and then surfaced later with whispered tales of being hauled off and tortured in unimaginable ways."
Jordan also said that a 31-year-old Kuwaiti woman, Asrar Qabandi, was captured by Iraqi secret police occupying her country in 1990 for 'crimes,' one of which included speaking with CNN on the phone. They beat her daily for two months forcing her father to watch. In January 1991, on the eve of the American-led offensive, they smashed her skull and tore her body apart limb by limb. A plastic bag containing he body parts was left on the doorstep of her family's home."
Other reports describe in detail Iraqi torture methods. One report [36] describes torture by cutting off one or both ears. Placing electrodes on a person's naval to administer electric shocks. Dislocating shoulders and wrapping an electric wire, attached to a hand-cranked machine, around a male's genitals. Another report detailed the torture of a female Iraqi. It quoted her as saying [53], "The first time they slapped me'...the secret police also burned her back with a metal rod and beat the soles of her feet. 'They tortured her me in every way,' she said.
Another report described the torture of several Iraqis who had been imprisoned by Hussein's secret police. They took reporters to the prison where they had been tortured. They told their stories [37]. "One man put his hands behind his back and lifted them upward - hung from the ceiling, he suggested, in an especially painful way. Another man took his fingers, meant to stand for electrical wires, and placed them on his genitals...Other men returning here said the interrogators had gone even further demanding sex with female relatives...In most cases, the prisoners said, bribes were paid, women were offered, but the prisoner remained in jail."
Another report detailed unspeakable torture on Iraqi prisoners [38]. "He put his hands behind his back to simulate being bound, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes as if blindfolded. A friend stepped behind him to hold his head, taking on the role of one of the enforcers. Then another would force open the victim's mouth, Ali said, and a third would yank the tongue out with pliers and slice it off with a surgical knife or an army blade...[The Iraqi doctor who performed such surgical torture] described delivering the decapitated heads of victims to their families as matter-of-factly as he explained his educational background...[The doctor, Ali] said that by 1996, he was chosen to join an elite 18-member squad within the Fedayeen called the Staff, which effectively served as special forces."
This same Washington Post report provided some insight as to the kind of torture that may have been meted out to Pvt. Jessica Lynch by the Fedayeen in Nasiriyah after her capture. "Punishments short of death were meted out according to a clear hierarchy, [Ali] said. Those who stole had their fingers or hands cut off. Those who lied had 18-pound concrete blocks dropped on their backs. Informers who gave inaccurate information had hot irons put in their mouths, he said, and army deserters had their ears sliced off."
Recall that Iraqi doctors who treated Pvt. Lynch in the hospital in Nasiriyah did not mention that she had a fractured disc in her back. The U.S. doctors who treated her in the U.S. military hospital in Germany before transferring her to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C carried out surgery on her back as the very first medical procedure. Recall that U.S. military doctors who performed the operation said that "they repaired a fracture that was pinching a nerve and causing her to lose feeling in her feet."
NEWSWEEK Magazine published an extensive and detailed account of the torture methods the Saddam Hussein's regime carried out on Iraqi citizens. One former Iraqi prisoner told of suffering electric shocks - using wires from a hand-cranked generator - to various body parts including his genitals [39]. "The fate of thousands...are buried in Saddam's numerous prisons. One of the most notorious was the IIS prison at Haakimiya, near a bustling commercial area in downtown Baghdad. A nondescript five-story building notable only by the extra barbed wire on the roof, the Haakimiya Prison is actually 10 stories. Belowground are interrogation cells where unspeakable horrors are committed. [An account of a former Iraqi inmate], searching for documents [after the fall of Baghdad] about his cousin...[said] he had been arrested with 19 others; the lucky ones were executed right away. The rest were tortured with electric cattle prods and forced to watch the prison guards gang-rape their wives and sisters. Some were fed into a machine that looked like a giant meat cutter. 'Peoples bodies were cut into tiny pieces and thrown into the Tigris River,' said Ulga."
The Washington Post reported that [40] "The most vicious of [the Baath Party] enforcers are the roughly 25,000 members of Saddam's Fedayeen, who report to Hussein through his eldest son, Uday. They are 'absolute dregs of Iraqi society,' said one intelligence official - failed students, victims of broken homes, young men with a history of violence. 'They are picked because they will be viewed [by other Iraqis] as killers,' the official explained."
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told the Washington Times that [41] "Up to 30,000 members of Iraq's black-hooded Fedayeen Saddam militia are using terrorist tactics to fight coalition forces in southern Iraq...We have intelligence information that the Fedayeen Saddam [meaning 'those willing to sacrifice themselves for Saddam] - I'm not going to call them troops, because they're traveling in civilian clothes and they're essentially terrorists..." They were known to be operating in Nasiriya, where Pvt. Lynch was taken prisoner of war.
Was Pvt. Jessica Lynch Tortured by the Iraqis?
It is clear that the Iraqis have carried out torture on their own citizens as well as U.S. prisoners of war during the 1991 Gulf Storm War. It is also clear that such brutal treatment is consistent with Islamic law practiced by the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan. For example, Johnny Michael Spann, the CIA operative who was caught in an uprising by hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in the Qala-i-Jangi fortress-prison near Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan during the early stages of the war there was tortured. Johnny Spann and his partner were questioning an al Qaeda prisoner [later determined to be the American, John Walker Lindh], when they were overwhelmed in the courtyard of the prison.
According to Robin Moore [42], when American Special Forces recovered Johnny Spann's body, they found that "Spann's body would bear out the worst of the rumors - he had been captured alive and tortured by the AQ. Both of his legs had been broken below the knees in a typical al Qaida torture method. What was not reported was that he had been alive for quite some time after. Two bullets had been placed in the small of his back, on either side of his spine. A final bullet, which killed him, had been inflicted some time later, in the back of the neck, probably as he knelt down with his hands tied behind his back."
This method of torture produced wounds on Spann's body that are quite similar to those found on Pvt. Jessica Lynch. The on-again, off-again official reports by U.S. medical doctors as to whether or not Jessica had suffered bullet wounds in unspecified areas of her anatomy are suspect. Recall [above] that Jessica Lynch's "most serious injury involves a vertebra in her lower back. She also has fractures in four places: her upper right arm, upper left leg, lower left leg, and right ankle and foot. The hospital said it wasn't clear how Lynch suffered the injuries. Gunshots from a low-velocity, small-caliber weapon may have caused one or more of them, but no bullets or metal fragments have been found."
It is of note as well [as documented above] that one of the favorite torture methods of the Saddam Fedayeen, under whose control Pvt. Jessica Lynch was hospitalized, was to drop an 18-pound cinder block on the victims back. In the absence of information to the contrary, it is possible that Jessica Lynch was tortured by her captors by breaking her back either with a cinder block or 'small caliber' gunshot wounds as was carried out by the terrorist fellow Islamists on Johnny Spann in Afghanistan.
It is also of note that Jessica Lynch's legs were broken in four places, any one or all of which could have been inflicted during a torture session or sessions by black-garbed Saddam Fedayeen while in the hospital for 'lying.' That, as documented above, is a customary method of torture by the Fedayeen. Indeed, Marines found a 'torture chamber' in the basement of the first hospital in which Jessica Lynch was held captive.
It is not clear how or for what purpose the two bullet wounds on Johnny Spann's body, one on each side of his spine, were inflicted. The CIA did not report the details. In fact, according to Robin Moore [43], "CIA case officers arrived at the Army's morgue to see Spann's body. The military mortuary team had cut off Spann's combat boots and removed his blue jeans and shirt. It was obvious that Spann's death had been long and painful. The Agency men ordered all existing medical records and autopsy reports destroyed and cautioned the Army staff not to make any new records or take photographs of Spann. His body would be placed in a sealed metal casket and sent back to the United States for a hero's burial. Although the intricate details of his death would be concealed, the CIA would break, for the first time in history, its long-standing rule of not acknowledging the identity or background of a covert-action agent killed in the line of duty."
Moore reveals that President Bush decided that Americans needed to know who [Spann] really was, and that he had died in the service of his country. "Apparently we did not need to know the brutality of his death - maybe because CIA officials worried that Americans would react the way they had when tortured American soldiers were dragged through the streets of [Mogadishu] in Somalia. That imagery caused an immediate U.S. withdrawal. The truth of the matter seemed to elude U.S. officials: Americans were ready for brutal casualties, Americans wanted the AQ stopped, and Americans were ready to meet violence with violence to protect their homeland."
In the case of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, a different motivation was involved. It was not only the families of the female soldiers in the 507th Maintenance Company who were shocked that they would be placed in harms way. The disgust and horror that Americans in their living rooms registered when they found out that women were being killed, captured, and possibly tortured by the Iraqis would redound harshly on those who were responsible for placing America's women at risk in a combat zone. Not only was America sending women into a combat zone, but two were single mothers with toddler children. America would be outraged at this situation. Who would be held responsible? Not just the radical feminists, but the senior military officers, congressmen and women, and Executive Branch civilians who had implemented the Clintons' agenda to 'feminize' our armed forces would feel the wrath of the American people for what happened to Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
A way had to be found to 'fuzz' the realization that our female soldiers were being killed, captured and possibly tortured in Iraq. The way out was to immediately create a myth - the myth of the Modern American War Hero. It would portray Pvt. Jessica Lynch as the centerpiece of this myth. This situation is discussed in detail in an essay at the link: Private Jessica Lynch: The Mythical Modern American War Hero.
So now we go back to the discussion of the 'hazy' details of the torture of Johnny Spann. The same degree of 'hazy detail' is quite likely to ensue in the case of Pvt. Jessica Lynch. After a few weeks of rehabilitation and 'decompression' at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center, we are told that Jessica has complete 'amnesia.' Fox News reported that [44] "...the military says Jessica Lynch cannot remember anything after the ambush. They say she was 'traumatized' and is 'blocking out memories.' Psychiatrists are helping her recover her memories because she 'is probably our best witness for war crimes prosecution.'"
Immediately after Fox News broke this story, there were strange and conflicting reports in major national newspapers. The Washington Post took what they could from Lynch family members and hospital spokeswomen [45]. "Lynch's family...said she was not yet talking with them about her ordeal...'We haven't talked too much about that at this time,' her father said. 'We're going to let Jessi have her feelings, so when she's ready to tell us something, she will.'"
"Officials at the [U.S. military hospital in Germany] said that "...Lynch may have described some of the events to an Army psychologist or intelligence officers who have met with her. But they suggested that she may not remember much, and that the discussions are going slowly. 'People have different reactions to the repatriation process,' said Marie Shaw, a hospital spokeswoman. 'Some people talk immediately when they come back and others keep it all inside...From what I have heard, I think she is one of those people who maybe does not remember.' She added that Lynch may have been unconscious for periods during her captivity." It appears that a coverup of the real story of Pvt. Lynch's captivity is proceeding apace, laced with the generalized descriptions and abstract psychobabble of our thoroughly therapeutic society.
The Post continues, "The two people Lynch is seeing most are a female friend from home, whom the family declined to identify, and an Army psychologist, Lt. Col. Sally Harvey. The friend [stayed] at the hospital [in Germany], while the family [stayed] in a guesthouse nearby."
It may be of interest to know what the New American War Hero does in whiling away his/her time while recuperating from 'combat' injuries. According to the Washington Post, Pvt. Lynch received numerous gifts, flowers, letters and Emails from well-wishers while in the hospital in Germany [46]. "The gifts included two stuffed animals, a white rabbit and a teddy bear, which Lynch is keeping on her bed together with another teddy bear with a red-white-and-blue ribbon that her family brought from home." Indeed, the Clintons,' during the 1990s, clearly succeeded in 'feminizing' America's 'combat' troops.
The Washington Post followed the 'amnesia' story concerning Pvt. Lynch's mental condition in the military hospital in Germany with one from sources at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. [47]. "Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch has no recollection of what happened between the moment her Army unit was ambushed in Iraq and when she awoke at the nearby hospital from which she was later rescued, military officials said yesterday. Exactly what transpired during the ambush and Lynch's 10 days in captivity is under investigation...'Her mind cannot account for any events during that time,' Army spokesman Kiki Bryant said…'Sometimes the mind doesn't register everything that's going on.'"
"Medical center officials emphasized that Lynch does not have amnesia, which they characterized as a loss of memory. Rather, Lynch never had any memory of that time to recall, they said. 'It's like being unconscious,' Bryant said. 'The doctors are reasonably sure that she does not know what happened to her.' Responding to reports describing her condition as amnesia, Lynch has told those close to her that 'I don't want people to think I can't remember things,' according to a statement issued at Walter Reed..."
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The following may be more related to the 'inflated' story of Lynch's heroism during the ambush battle than during her captivity:
The Associated Press went even further down the trail of 'fuzzing the story of Pvt. Lynch's possible torture while in captivity.' Their story sets the stage for a quick burial via coverup of the truth in the matter [48]. "It's unlikely that Pfc. Jessica Lynch will EVER remember what happened in Iraq when her Army convoy was ambushed and she was taken prisoner of war, her doctor said yesterday. This incident has been shrouded in secrecy, with various versions only now emerging about Pfc. Lynch's injuries nearly seven weeks ago and the commando raid that rescued her April 1st...she has 'no memory whatsoever of any of the events from the time her convoy came under attack until she woke up' in an Iraqi hospital, said Dr. Argyros, assistant chief for the Department of Medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and head of the team handling Pfc. Lynch's care...Anytime anybody goes through a traumatic event of any kind, there is the risk that they may have a period that they don't remember what happened during the event,' Dr. Argyros said in an interview on NBC's Today show."
"Asked if she will EVER remember, Dr. Argyros said there's only a small chance. 'It appears after the evaluations that we have done thus far, that there's a chance in the future that she may,' he said. 'But the likelihood is very low that she will remember any of the events from the time of the attack until the time she woke up in the Iraqi hospital.'" This is exactly the opposite of the radical feminist crusade in the 1980s - 1990s wherein scores of parents and grandparents were arrested, convicted, and jailed on the basis of the 'recovery' of repressed memories of traumatic experiences [involving sexual abuse] during their childhood and/or young adulthood. Dorothy Rabinowitz and Paul Craig Roberts have exhaustively exposed this national scandal. It appears that Americans will believe almost anything as long as it comes from the mouth of a psychologist, psychiatrist, or even just a licensed therapist.
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It appears that the full story of Pvt. Jessica Lynch's captivity - whether or not she was 'tortured' as the Iraqi lawyer witnessed by 'slaps to the face' by her Fedayeen overseer, or more seriously, whether or not her major body wounds were inflicted by her captors -- may never be known. The revelation of the truth may be hampered by a 'conspiracy of fate,' as are many of life's stories. Or it may well be that Jessica Lynch was brutally tortured by the Saddam Fedayeen.
Irrespective of this reality, it is useful to question just who could gain by a coverup of sadistic torture if it, indeed, occurred. There are groups of Americans who would benefit if the truth were covered up. First, the radical feminist organizations who have lobbied, pressured, pushed, schemed, and used the mass media to usher females into combat or near-combat positions in the armed forces would benefit. The outrage of the American people, if they knew the truth, would be aimed directly at them.
Second, the politicians in the congress and in the Executive Branch would benefit if the truth were covered up because they would feel the same wrath of the American people directed at the radical feminists. That would include all of those who voted for the repeal of the 'combat exclusion rule' for women in 1993, which allowed women to be assigned to combat aviation and combat ships, as well as thousands of 'jobs' in the Army in 'high risk' near-combat areas. Senators John McCain, John Warner, the 'shrill sisters' in the Senate and the House and many others were swept up in the 'political movement' to provide 'equal opportunity' for women in our armed forces. They would not stand up to the radical feminists. They would not stand up against the tide of public opinion which sided with the 'equal opportunity' arguments of the radical feminists. Why? Simply to get re-elected to office. Their high position was worth more than a stand on principle and the experience of 'tested' combat veterans that would not have introduced reduced standards in our armed forces, especially in its vast 'tail' of support elements - of which the 507th Maintenance Company was one.
The largest group who would benefit from such a coverup is that comprising the general and flag-rank officers in our armed forces. They were the ones who, knowing that the Clintons' agenda to 'socialize,' indeed 'feminize' our nation's armed forces would reduce operational readiness by the resulting lowered standards, went along to get along - in the interest of their careers. The very people who are in charge at the upper echelons of fighting the war with Iraq, providing the news and developing the intelligence have gone through a 'purge' in the past decade that eliminated the 'warriors' and the 'warrior ethos' from the support 'tail.' of our armed forces. That 'tail' was reduced to a jobs corps for minorities and women.
When such a large and powerful segment of our nation's leadership benefit from a coverup of the possible torture of Pvt. Jessica Lynch during her captivity in Iraq, it is of great import to seek and find the truth in this matter. Otherwise, remedial action, based on experience, is impossible. What occurred in this war with Iraq regarding the Army's vulnerable 'tail' support elements, could be a national disaster on a vast scale in a war with a more competent and determined enemy. The American people must know the truth in this matter.
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Footnotes:
1) Yardley, Jim, "TV Images Confirm Fears of Prisoners' Kin," The New York Times, 25 March 2003.
2) Ibid, Yardley, Jim.
3) Thomas, Cathy Booth, "Taken By Surprise," Time Magazine OnLine, 30 March 2003.
4) Ibid.
5) Hockstader, Lee, "Somber Epilogue to Daring Rescue," The Washington Post, 6 April 2003.
6) Kenworthy, Tom and Willing, Richard, "TV coverage takes toll on families of POWs," USA TODAY, 28 March 2003.
7) Adler, Jerry et al, "The Soldiers: 'I Had a Terrible Feeling,'" NEWSWEEK Magazine, pp. 53, 7 April 2003.
8) Hull, Anne and Goldstein, Amy, "Back at Home, Grieving - and Some Questions: Lack of Details on Deaths Angers Kin," The Washington Post,
27 March 2003.
9) "Saving POW Lynch," The Discovery Channel, 10:00 p.m., 30 April 2003.
10) Landler, Mark, "Marines Say Iraqi Attack Turned Sky Into 'Jigsaw,'" The New York Times, 3 April 2003.
11) Maass, Peter, "Good Kills," The New York Times Magazine, pp. 32, 20 April 2003.
12) Weinraub, Bernard and Perlez, Jane, "Wrong Turn Leads to Death And Capture for Americans," The New York Times, 24 March 2003.
13) Baker, Peter, "Dark days, with death outside door," The Washington Post, 14 April 2003.
14) Ibid, The Discovery Channel.
15) Ibid, Baker, Peter, The Washington Post.
16) Loeb, Vernon and Priest, Dana, "Missing Soldier Rescued: U.S. Forces Remove POW From Hospital," The Washington Post, 2 April 2003.
17) Martin, Paul, "U.S. POW rescued, is 'alive and well,'" The Washington Times, 2 April 2003.
18) Schmidt, Susan and Loeb, Vernon, "'She Was Fighting to the Death:' Details Emerging of W. Va. Soldier's Capture and Rescue," The Washington Post, 3 April 2003.
19) From combined dispatches, "Intelligence tip, local Iraqis' help cited in POW rescue," The Washington Times, 3 April 2003.
20) Baker, Peter, "Iraqi Man Risked All to Help Free American Soldier," The Washington Post, 4 April 2003.
21) Whoriskey, Peter, "W.Va. Soldier, Parents Revel In Small Talk Over the Phone," The Washington Post, 4 April 2003.
22) Sipress, Alan, "Command Details Events Leading to Rescue of Lynch," The Washington Post, 6 April 2003.
23) Feuer, Alan, "Rescued Soldier's Iraqi Doctors Doubled as Her Guardians," The New York Times, 21 April 2003.
24) Adler, Jerry, "Jessica's Liberation," NEWSWEEK Magazine, pp. 42, 14 April 2003.
25) Richburg, Keith B., "Iraqis Say Lynch Raid Faced No Resistance," The Washington Post, 15 April 2003.
26) Seper, Jerry, "Iraqi lawyer who saved Pfc. Lynch granted U.S. asylum," The Washington Times, 30 April 2003.
27) Getler, Michael, "Reporting Private Lynch," The Washington Post, 20 April 2003.
28) McCartney, " 'Her Spirits Were High,' Ex-POW's Father Says," The Washington Post, 9 April 2003.
29) Gertz, Bill, "Military begins to identify 11 bodies: Remains found in rescue of Lynch," The Washington Times, 3 April 2003.
30) Schmitt, Eric and Sanger, David E., "U.S. Officials Say Iraqis May Have Killed Some American Prisoners," The New York Times, 26 March 2003.
31) Scarborough, Rowan, "U.S. POWs held by Saddam's inner circle," The Washington Times, 29 March 2003.
32) Bostom, Andrew G., "The treatment of POWs: Islam vs. the Geneva Convention," The Washington Times, 28 March 2003.
33) Abu'l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah, "The Laws of Islamic Governance," translated by Dr. Asadullah Yate, [London], Ta-Ha Publishers, Ltd., pp. 192, 1996.
34) Graham, Bradley and Weisman, Jonathan, "Display of 5 POWs Draws Firm Rebuke: U.S. Warns Iraq on Televised Images," The Washington Post, 24 March 2003.
35) Glasser, Susan B., "Scars Document Torture by Hussein Regime," The Washington Post, 19 April 2003.
36) Glasser, Susan B., "Party Is Gone, But Amazingly, She Is Not," The Washington Post, 12 April 2003.
37) Filkins, Dexter, "Iraqis Confront Memories in a Place of Torture," The New York Times, 21 April 2003.
38) Baker, Peter, "A Prosaic Description of Unspeakable Torture: Iraqi Impassively Details Vicious Acts Committed in Uday Hussein's Militia," The Washington Post, 22 April 2003.
39) Liu, Milinda, Nordland, Rod, and Thomas, Evan, "Special Report: The Saddam Files," NEWSWEEK Magazine, pp. 21-31, 28 April 2003.
40) Ignatius, David, "Hussein's Enforcers At Work," The Washington Post, 29 March 2003.
41) Gertz, Bill, "Fedayeen Saddam 'essentially terrorists," The Washington Times, 26 March 2003.
42) Moore, Robin, "The Hunt for Bin Laden: Task Force Dagger, On the Ground with the Special Forces in Afghanistan, Random House, pp. 173, 2003.
43) Ibid, pp. 175.
44) FreeRepublic.com, "Breaking: Fox News: Jessica lynch has 'Amnesia,'" Posted 3 May 03 by Rita Cosby, Fox News.
45) McCartney, Robert J., " 'Her Spirits Were High,' Ex-POW's Father Says," The Washington Post, 9 April 2003.
46) Ibid.
47) Whoriskey, Peter, "Lynch Does Not Recall Capture, Officials Say," The Washington Post, 9 May 2003.
48) Associated Press, "Army's Lynch unable to recall ordeal in Iraq," The Washington Times, 9 May 2003.
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