- LOS ANGELES (Reuters)
- Army private Jessica Lynch, the badly injured U.S. prisoner of war who
was rescued from a hospital during the Iraq war, said in her first interview
that she is not the Rambo-style hero she has been portrayed as by American
media and the military.
-
- Lynch, 20, told ABC network reporter Diane Sawyer in
an interview to be aired on "Primetime" next Tuesday, the same
day as her authorized biography is published, that she never fired a shot
when ambushed.
-
- "My weapon did jam and I did not shoot, not a round,
nothing. I don't look at myself as a hero. My heroes are Lori (Private
Lori Piestewa, who died in the ambush of Lynch's convoy), the soldiers
that are over there, the soldiers that were in the car beside me, the ones
that came and rescued me," she said.
-
- Lynch is still recovering from injuries to her spine,
and cannot walk without crutches. She has no feeling in her left foot and
has other medical problems.
-
- Lynch, who became a symbol of U.S. heroism during the
early stages of the war on Iraq, insisted, "I am just a survivor."
-
- In an advance, partial copy of the ABC interview, Lynch
said she was hurt that other people had "made up stories" about
her fiercely fighting her Iraqi captors.
-
- "I'm not about to take credit for something that
I didn't do... It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that
they had no truth about. Only I would have been able to know that because
the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell that story."
-
- 'PRAYING ON MY KNEES'
-
- Lynch, a supply clerk who was awarded the Bronze Star,
the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War medal, received an honorable military
discharge from the Army in August due to her injuries, allowing her to
sign the $1 million book deal.
-
- U.S. commandos filmed their rescue of Lynch from the
Iraqi hospital on April 1, nine days after she was captured at the onset
of the war.
-
- An early media report quoted unnamed U.S. officials as
saying she "fought to the death" before being captured and suffered
multiple gunshot wounds. The Army later concluded she was hurt when her
Humvee crashed into another vehicle in the convoy after being hit by a
grenade.
-
- Sawyer asked Lynch if she went down "like, somebody
said, Rambo?"
-
- "No, I went down praying on my knees," she
replied.
-
- Lynch said she was thankful to the soldiers who rescued
her but said she was troubled by the way the incident was portrayed by
the military.
-
- "It does (bother me) that they used me as a way
to symbolize all this stuff ... yeah, it's wrong ... I don't know why they
filmed it, or why they say the things they, you know."
-
- The full details of her story have yet to come out since
Lynch said she suffered a loss of memory after her capture.
-
- ABC said that in the interview she discussed for the
first time a report she was sexually assaulted during her captivity, saying
that she did not remember such an incident but adding, "even just
the thinking about that, that's too painful."
-
- According to Sawyer, the book "I Am a Soldier, Too:
The Jessica Lynch Story," cites a medical record as indicating that
Lynch was raped.
-
- The young private was captured by Iraqis on March 23
near Nassiriya. Eleven other U.S. soldiers were killed and nine wounded
in the incident.
-
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