Jessica Lynch

Private First Class Jessica Lynch was a 19-year-old U.S. Army supply clerk with the 507th Maintenance Company based in Fort Bliss, Texas. While stationed in Iraq, she was injured and captured by Iraqi forces on March 23, 2003 after her convoy was ambushed near the city of Nasiriyah. Eleven other soldiers in the company were killed in the ambush. Accounts of the events in between Lynch's capture and her rescue were incomplete and contradictory, and Lynch herself has no recollection of this period. On April 1, 2003, U.S. forces, acting on a tip from a local Iraqi man, rescued Lynch from an Iraqi hospital. Media reports of Lynch's rescue, as well as the extent of Lynch's injuries, were reportedly distorted and exaggerated. She suffered a head laceration, an injury to her spine and fractures in her arms and legs. Initial reports also stated that Lynch had suffered gunshot and stab wounds, and was sodomized during her captivity, based on medical records and injury patterns. However, Lynch has no memory of being assaulted or tortured during her captivity. On April 12, 2003, Private Lynch was flown back to the United States and awarded the Bronze Star for Bravery. She was given an honorable discharge in August 2003. The fellow members of Lynch's company were subsequently given posthumous Purple Hearts. Lynch's rescue was the first of an American POW since World War II and the first ever of a woman.