{"id":1922,"date":"2003-11-07T04:15:52","date_gmt":"2003-11-07T20:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/11\/07\/pvt-lynch-refutes-military-rescue-claims\/"},"modified":"2019-12-06T10:33:11","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T18:33:11","slug":"pvt-lynch-refutes-military-rescue-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/11\/07\/pvt-lynch-refutes-military-rescue-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Pvt. Lynch refutes military rescue claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:12897,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.msnbc.com\\\/news\\\/990040.asp?vts=110720031112&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.ms.now\\\/news\\\/990040.asp?vts=110720031112&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12898,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.nytimes.com\\\/2003\\\/11\\\/07\\\/national\\\/07LYNC.html?ex=1068872400&amp;&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12899,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/atrios.blogspot.com\\\/2003_11_02_atrios_archive.html#106821479187545294&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20070706013121\\\/http:\\\/\\\/atrios.blogspot.com\\\/2003_11_02_atrios_archive.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-12 03:47:39&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-01 02:31:51&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-01 02:31:51&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12900,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.msnbc.com\\\/news\\\/scarboroughcountry_front.asp?0cb=-111120524&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.ms.now\\\/news\\\/scarboroughcountry_front.asp?0cb=-111120524&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Private Jessica Lynch, in her first public statements since her heavily reported capture and rescue, has expressed her discomfort with the military using her for propaganda purposes (which generated some <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/04\/propaganda_at_i.html\" title=\"Propaganda at its finest\">interesting discussion here<\/a> at the time).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  THE 20-YEAR-OLD private told ABC&#8217;s Diane Sawyer in a &#8220;Primetime&#8221; interview to air Tuesday that she was bothered by the military&#8217;s portrayal of her ordeal.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;They used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff,&#8221; she said in an excerpt from the interview, posted Friday on the network&#8217;s Web site. &#8220;It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>  She also said there was no reason for her rescue from an Iraqi hospital to be filmed. &#8220;It&#8217;s wrong,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  Footage of the rescue was aired repeatedly on television networks reporting how a special forces team bravely fought into and out of the hospital. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it happened quite like that,&#8221; Lynch said.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&amp;mdash MSNBC: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/news\/990040.asp?vts=110720031112\" title=\"Military Manipulated Story\">Lynch: Military Manipulated Story<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  In the book and in the interviews, Ms.\u00a0Lynch says others&#8217; accounts of her heroism often left her feeling hurt and ashamed because of what she says was overstatement.<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  Asked how she felt about the reports of her heroism, Ms.\u00a0Lynch told Ms.\u00a0Sawyer, &#8220;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&#8217;t here to tell the story. So I would have been the only one able to say, yeah, I went down shooting. But I didn&#8217;t.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  And asked about reports that the military exaggerated the danger of the rescue mission, Ms.\u00a0Lynch said, &#8220;Yeah, I don&#8217;t think it happened quite like that,&#8221; although she added that in that context anybody would have approached the hospital well-armed. She continued: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know why they filmed it, or why they say the things they, you know, all I know was that I was in that hospital hurting. I needed help.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  Ms.\u00a0Lynch also disputed statements by Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer, that he saw her captors slap her.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;From the time I woke up in that hospital, no one beat me, no one slapped me, no one, nothing,&#8221; Ms.\u00a0Lynch told Diane Sawyer, adding, &#8220;I&#8217;m so thankful for those people, because that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m alive today.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8212; The New York Times: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/11\/07\/national\/07LYNC.html?ex=1068872400&amp;\" title=\"Jessica Lynch Criticizes U.S. Accounts of Her Ordeal\">Jessica Lynch Criticizes U.S. Accounts of Her Ordeal<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Right now, I feel so sorry for Pvt. Lynch &#8212; both for what she went through in Iraq and what she&#8217;s gone through since returning home &#8212; and I&#8217;m also incredibly proud of her for speaking out and expressing her dissatisfaction with the way the story was handled. It was certainly not her fault that the military chose to use her story for grandstanding purposes, and she probably needs our thoughts and support as much now as she ever did before.<\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/atrios.blogspot.com\/2003_11_02_atrios_archive.html#106821479187545294\" title=\"Smackdown\">Atrios<\/a> and Dad)<\/p>\n<p>Also of interest, the MSNBC story on Pvt. Lynch links at the bottom to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/news\/scarboroughcountry_front.asp?0cb=-111120524\" title=\"What about Shoshana?\">TV-only story<\/a> questioning the differing treatment by the military and media between Pvt. Lynch and Pvt. Soshana Johnson, something that dad and I <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/04\/propaganda_at_i.html#c292533\" title=\"I agree with everything which has been said, now that I understand.\">touched on<\/a> when first discussing the Pvt. Lynch story. Hopefully a webcast of this story will be made available once it&#8217;s been broadcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Private Jessica Lynch, in her first public statements since her heavily reported capture and rescue, has expressed her discomfort with the military using her for propaganda purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}