MORGANTOWN – West Virginia Army veteran and former POW Jessica Lynch came ot WVU Tuesday night to tell the story of her ordeal and her life since – and to share her message of encouragement and perseverance.
“Any time I am faced with any kind of life struggles, it’s like I just can’t give up,” she said. “Don’t quit now. … Whatever it is, just never give up. Always find something good and positive that you look forward to, and just keep striving.”
WVU’s Center for Veteran, Military and Family Programs hosted Lynch’s appearance.
West Virginia National Guard Adjutant General Bill Crane was pleased to introduce her, and to finally meet her after 21 years.
He was a very young major in 2003 when Lynch was captured, he said. He was assigned the duty of having to inform her parents that she was missing in action.
This week, he and Lynch had lunch together. “I was so glad to finally get to meet her, because it had been 21 years since it had happened.” He turned to her, “I’m so proud of all you do for the state of West Virginia, and our country and for our veterans.”
Lynch opened her story back I 2001, after graduating from high school in May 2001, with plans to become a kindergarten teacher. That plan took an unexpected turn when she, age 18, and her younger sister and older brother were at home one day, and an Army recruiter came to their door.
She and her brother enlisted that day and she trained as a supply clerk, she said.
Jump to 2003. She’d re-enlisted with the hope of serving in Hawaii. Instead, she was deployed to Kuwait. She chuckled, saying her commander told her, “But I’m giving you sand.”
Now 19 and just shy of turning 20, she was part of the 507th Maintenance Company Air Defense Artillery. The invasion of Iraq began March 20. A convoy set out for Baghdad.
On the second day, her unit fell behind, she said. She was among 33 people in 17 vehicles who stayed behind as the rest pushed on. By that night, they realized they were lost and 19 hours behind the convoy.
On March 23, they thought they saw the convoy lights but instead found themselves in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. Iraqis with guns started appearing, even children bearing AK-47s. It was an ambush.
She was in a four-person Humvee with five soldiers that crashed into another vehicle. The driver, Lori Piestewa, died in the crash and the three men in the Humvee were shot to death. Lynch was knocked unconscious, taken out and dragged to a nearby palace.
Her captors broke her bones, she said: They snapped her right humerus (upper arm bone), broke vertebrae in her back, her left femur, her ribs, smashed her left tibia with a metal pipe. Her right foot was broken and crushed.
She awoke in a bed in what was then called Saddam Hospital. She couldn’t feel anything from waist down. She was constantly moved around the hospital and one day taken to an operating room.
“I started to freak out,” she said. She didn’t know what they were going to do. She cried and begged them to stop. They did and returned her to a room.
For a time, she was taken to an abandoned building on the outskirts of town and left alone, then returned to the hospital. She had no sense of time. Except for 4 ounces of orange juice served to her for a proof-of-life video, she had no food or water.
Her rescuers arrived on April 1. In a hospital in Germany, she learned the Iraqis has removed her femur and replaced it with an unsterilized 1940s rod designed for a man, which caused an infection. She’d been taken to the Iraqi OR to have the leg amputated.
Since then, she’s had 22 surgeries and soon faces her ninth surgery on her foot. But she carries on. “I know that I am just blessed to be here.” With each surgery, “I come out stronger than I went in.”
More of her story unfolded during a Q&A session.
About 10 years ago, she wa shit with PTSD. “It was just kind of like a light switch that flipped on me.”
She reached a point of planning suicide and was alone in her car when she suddenly thought, “I don’t want my daughter to grow up without a mom.”
She won’t compare her nine days to the years other veterans have suffered in captivity. But, “in the shape that I was in, I definitely would not have survived any more than that.” She felt the life fading from her.
She finally did achieve her career dream. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and she now substitute teaches in Wirt and Wood counties. And she also serves part time with the state Department of Veterans Assistance helping with claims.
And she did finally make it to Hawaii, with some friends. “We just got to relax and chill on the beach – the real sand.”
