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Lynch disturbed by exegerations { November 11 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--lynch-apinterview1111nov11,0,1187979.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wirehttp://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--lynch-apinterview1111nov11,0,1187979.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire
AP Interview: Rescued POW `disturbed' by exaggerated early reports of her ordeal
By ERIN McCLAM
Associated Press Writer
November 11, 2003, 3:03 PM EST
NEW YORK -- Pfc. Jessica Lynch said Tuesday she is "disturbed" by military reports that falsely said she went down shooting in an Iraqi ambush and dramatized her rescue by U.S. troops.
"That wasn't me. I wasn't about to take credit for something I didn't do," she told The Associated Press. "I'm not that person."
The 20-year-old former Army supply clerk, twig-thin and weary, one crutch close at hand, described her ordeal in a Veterans Day interview that broke her silence seven months after the rescue made her a national war hero.
Reports circulated by the U.S. military early in the war said Lynch waged a gunbattle with Iraqi fighters who ambushed her 507th Maintenance Company on March 23 at Nasiriyah. She has since said her rifle jammed, and she fired no shots.
And video shot by the Americans who rescued her nine days later at an Iraqi hospital suggested they encountered hostility in a daring raid. Lynch's new book says hospital staff did not resist, and even offered gun-toting U.S. troops a key.
"It disturbed me," Lynch said. "I knew that it wasn't the truth."
Still, the ex-prisoner of war from rural West Virginia took pains to say she does not care why the military may have exaggerated her story, and that she thinks of the soldiers who rescued her April 1 as heroes.
"No matter what it was, the point is that they got in there, they rescued me, and they took me home safe."
Lynch, who has fair skin and fine blond hair that falls to her shoulders, physically recoils when she recounts her time in the hospital, a time when her hope dwindled each day that she would see home again _ or even survive.
But as she lay in a bed at Saddam Hussein General Hospital, her body wracked and spirit nearly wrecked, Lynch said she decided: "I wasn't going to let myself die there."
"I was determined," she said. "In my mind, I was thinking, `I've got family to get back to, I've got a boyfriend, I've got all these things to see and do when I get home."'
Lynch spoke with the AP as her biography, "I Am a Soldier, Too," hit bookstores nationwide. It was written by Rick Bragg, who resigned from The New York Times after a freelancer helped him with a story without receiving credit.
The book describes the Iraqi doctors and nurses who cared for her as thoughtful and gentle people who repeatedly and secretly tried to see her to freedom.
Lynch "lost" three hours between the ambush, when Iraqi troops swarmed her convoy after it missed a turn, and waking up in an Iraqi military hospital, according to the book.
In that time, according to medical records cited in the biography, Lynch suffered broken bones and two spinal fractures and was sodomized. Iraqi doctors have disputed the sexual assault allegations.
Today, Lynch walks with the help of a single crutch or is shuttled around in a wheelchair. She undergoes two hours of daily physical therapy. "It's getting better every day," she said. "It's a long process, but it's going OK."
Lynch said she tries to avoid news coverage of the ongoing conflict in Iraq because her personal memories of the fighting are too painful to confront. She said the almost-daily reports of U.S. troop deaths deeply sadden her.
"It's horrible," she said. "It seems like it's getting worse every day. It's just something that, you know, doesn't seem to get any better." She said all the slain American troops are heroes to her.
She also declined to discuss claims Tuesday by pornographer Larry Flynt that he purchased nude photos of Lynch last month and intended to publish them in his Hustler magazine _ but changed his mind because she is a "good kid."
Flynt claimed through a publicist that the photos show an undressed Lynch posing with male soldiers.
Lynch attorney Stephen Goodwin said, "It's incredulous that anyone would think it appropriate in any way to attempt to publish unauthorized photos of Jessica _ photos taken before she was deployed to Iraq and before her capture and rescue."
Lynch and Bragg are splitting a $1 million book advance from publisher Alfred A. Knopf, which ordered a first run of 500,000 copies. Publicity surrounding the release has included an unauthorized NBC movie and a prime-time ABC interview.
Bragg completed the book in about three months. He said he sometimes felt guilty during lengthy interviews with Lynch at her home in Palestine, W.Va., and by telephone.
"Sometimes, I'd stop asking questions because it was painful to hear," he said. "There are parts of the book that I won't read again because I look at the chapter and I think about Jessi having to talk about it, and it's very hard."
Lynch plans to marry Army Sgt. Ruben Contreras in June, although the families plan to keep details secret. Lynch said she is still deciding future plans, and just wants to finish her physical rehabilitation first.
"I want to get walking first," she said. "But I want a family. I want kids. I guess that's kind of everyone's dream."
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Publisher: http://www.aaknopf.com
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press
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