Jeremy Loffredo
After Lynch was captured during the 2003 Iraq invasion, the media reported that the teenage soldier from West Virginia had fought fiercely against her Iraqi captors, firing until she ran out of ammunition, and had even been shot and stabbed multiple times. The Washington Post called her a “little girl Rambo” from West Virginia. Hollywood-style footage of U.S. forces raiding the Iraqi hospital where she was held was played on television stations across the country. But it later emerged that Lynch had not fought her captors, had not been shot or stabbed, and had been treated humanely by Iraqi medical staff, who even tried to return her to American forces but the Americans refused to take her back and instead staged an on-camera nighttime raid of the hospital, turning the spectacle into a Pentagon propaganda win. The U.S. neurosurgeon who treated Lynch found no evidence of gunshot wounds and testified that the Pentagon barred him from telling anyone.
Special Ops Magazine
US Air Force Pararescueman (PJ) provides medical treatment to US Army PFC Jessica Lynch after her rescue by US Special Forces in 2003. Initially captured by Iraqi soldiers, Lynch became the first American prisoner of war successfully rescued alive since WWII.
