Where Is Jessica Lynch Now, 13 Years After Her Rescue?
It’s been over a decade since Jessica Lynch was ambushed by Iraqi forces, brutalized and held captive for nine days, and rescued by U.S. Forces nine days later.
In fact, today — July 22, 2016 — marks the 13-year anniversary of when she received the Bronze Star, Prisoner of War, and Purple Hearts awards.
But this intervening decade has been painful in its own ways, as she told CNN in 2015.
Jessica was 19 and working as a unit supply specialist when her 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed on March 23, 2003, in the Battle of Nasiriyah. When her unit’s Humvee crashed after being hit by a grenade, her legs and feet were crushed, her arms were smashed, and her back was broken in two places.
Her attackers took her to one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces and raped her while she was unconscious.
Then she was taken to Saddam Hussein Hospital, where doctors told her they were going to amputate her leg. She pleaded for them not to. They ended up replacing one of her femurs with an improperly-sized metal rod.
On April 1, 2003, U.S. Special Operations Forces rescued her. Her best friend, Lori Piestewa, survived the attack but died before the rescue.
After being honorably discharged from the Army, Jessica bought an 80-acre property near her hometown of Elizabeth, West Virginia. She met longtime fiancé Wes Robinson at a Christmas party in 2005, having been introduced to him by her aunt. They have a 9-year-old daughter, Dakota Ann. Ann was Lori’s middle name, too.
She has endured as much as 40 hours of week of physical therapy in past years. “She never complained. Not once,” her physical therapist told CNN. “She just did it.”
Still, the 33-year-old has lingering health issues. She has day-long migraines, she takes eight pills a night, and her heart rate mysteriously spikes.
Even worse, she has struggled with PTSD and survivor’s guilt.
“People expect me to be doing OK,” she said. “They expect that I should be perfectly fine now.”
She still has nightmares every night, and they’re always the same — she’s being chased by her captors.
“I try to dream about peaceful things, beaches,” she explained. “That is what I cannot understand. Why are they chasing me?”
Jessica only allows select family members into her house, and she constantly checks the locks on her doors and windows.
“I need to check,” she said. “I do that 200 times a night before I lay down and go to bed.”
And she has to contend with exaggerated accounts of the ambush — after erroneous reports claimed she fired back at her attackers.
“I’m still confused as to why [people] chose to lie and try to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were legendary,” she said.
But she’s also trying to move on. She has acted in Christian movies, and takes gigs as a motivational speaker.
“Most people want to hear my story, hear about what happened,” she said. “I keep it general. I feel that people don’t want to hear all that stuff. They want to hear the positive stuff.”
Source: Dan Clarendon via WetPaint.com