yesterday while driving home from work

i heard some woman (wwuh the university of hartford radio station i think it was naomi wolf but i cannot be sure Does Susan Faludi's Terror Dream Oversimplify Post-9/11 America?) talking about jessica lynch. the REAL story of ms lynch and what and how the media portrayed her. most of what the speaker was saying was true. however, i did feel uneasy because i felt the speaker was USING ms lynch just like the government and msm used her.

i coincidentially came across this article and wanted to post the link
Former POW Jessica Lynch Recalls Her Captivity in Iraq
Lynch, Shoshana Johnson, and Patrick Miller talk to U.S. News about moving on
By Anna Mulrine
In the popular Bertolt Brecht play that bears its lead character's name, Galileo recants his beliefs under threat of Vatican torture. That prompts a compatriot to note, "Unhappy is a land that breeds no heroes." No, Galileo replies: Unhappy is the land that needs heroes. Five years ago, America needed heroes. Just three days into a polarizing war with Iraq, the 507th Maintenance Company, the last in a column of 600 vehicles making its way toward Baghdad, got mired in sand with jammed weapons. Over a period of 60 to 70 hours with little rest and limited communications, the company, composed in part of welders, mechanics, and cooks, was isolated and stretched to its limit. Then it got lost. As the 507th soldiers, members of a Patriot missile support group, drove through the city of Nasiriyah—the result of a navigational error—Iraqi residents appeared more stunned than hostile. When the unit made a U-turn and passed through the town again in an effort to rejoin its convoy, it ran headlong into what the U.S. Army's official report of the day describes as a "torrent of fire." Of the 33 soldiers from the 507th who were involved in the attack, 11 were killed, nine were wounded, and seven were taken captive.
The Army's official report called the event a tragedy, one that spurred early criticism among military officials that the war plan had considerably underestimated troop requirements, leaving supply lines overextended and vulnerable to attack. It was the first indication that this would not be a telegenic, first Gulf War kind of fight..........

jessica to me you ARE a hero

and always will be.

i don't care if you fired off a shot or not (because your military rifle JAMMED). you were in iraq. sent there by a team of madmen (and women). that alone qualifies you. but you went a step further. you TOLD THE TRUTH

Ex-POW tells Glamour she still gets hate mail

The Associated PressPosted : Wednesday Jun 6, 2007 12:32:21 EDT

NEW YORK — Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch still receives hate mail, four years after her capture and long after publicly disputing the military’s exaggerated accounts of her capture and rescue in Iraq.
The former Army private from Palestine, W.Va., was severely injured and 11 other soldiers killed when their convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah in 2003. Lynch, one of six soldiers captured, was later rescued by American troops from an Iraqi hospital, but the military’s account of the ambush embellished her role to make it sound more heroic.
Lynch, who testified before Congress in April, has received some 30,000 letters from people across the country. While most are from supporters, there are plenty of critics.
“People say, ‘You didn’t do anything in Iraq.’ Sometimes I think I’m the most hated person in America,” she told Glamour magazine for the July issue appearing on newsstands June 12..............

we all know about

pat tillman and jessica lynch (and i'm NOT taking a THING away from them) but do we all
know about lavena johnson (i have posted on her before)?

if not - you SHOULD

Center for Media and Democracy on Tillman/Lynch hearings and LaVena Johnson story
Posted by Philip Barron
............Farsetta takes special note of Pfc. LaVena Johnson and other soldiers who died or were wounded under unexplained circumstances in Iraq and elsewhere. The report goes on to focus on the many aspects of the committee hearing that were glossed over or ignored altogether by mainstream press coverage.
Farsetta's report is well worth reading. It is welcome not only for its recognition of LaVena Johnson and other fallen soldiers, but its exposure of a negligent media and its insights into the broader costs to democracy brought about by the war.
(As before, I ask you to sign the LaVena Johnson petition to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, and to contact your legislator on those committees. Thanks.) .............