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Friday, April 04, 2003

Post-Gazette staff and wire reports

PALESTINE, W. Va. -- Details of the capture, imprisonment and rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch continued to emerge yesterday as military officials paid a visit to her family here.

	Representatives of the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency of the Department of Defense arrive at the home of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch to brief her family on her condition and what she went through during her time as a prisoner of war in Iraq. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

According to a military reporter with the First Marine Expeditionary Force, the team that rescued Lynch from Saddam Hussein Hospital in Nasiriyah, Iraq, was led to Lynch by an Iraqi man whose wife was a nurse at the hospital.

The man, a lawyer from Nasiriyah whom the reporter identified only as Mohammad, said he peered through the window of Lynch's room.

The Knight Ridder News Service reported that the lawyer saw an Iraqi captor known as the Colonel slap the helpless 19-year-old soldier twice as she lay wounded in a hospital bed.

"I knew then I must help her be saved," Mohammad said, according to the military reporter. "I decided I must go to tell the Americans."

The military reporter said that after Mohammad walked several miles to inform Marines about Lynch's whereabouts, he returned to the hospital to gather intelligence, including the number of Iraqi troops on guard, the layout of the building and the room in which Lynch was kept.

	Pfc. Jessica Lynch, seen in this nightscope video image released yesterday, is carried down a stairwell at Saddam Hussein Hospital on a stretcher during her rescue Tuesday by U.S. commandos in Nasiriyah, Iraq. Lynch was captured in an ambush on March 23 in Iraq. (Department of Defense via AP)

An elite U.S. commando force rescued Lynch Tuesday. She was flown to Germany for treatment of her injuries.

Mohammad and his family have been granted refugee status and have been taken to a secure location, the reporter said.

Gregory Lynch Sr. said yesterday that his daughter was in great spirits following her first surgery and said she had not been shot or stabbed during her ordeal, contrary to some news reports.

"We have heard and seen reports that she had multiple gunshot wounds and a knife stabbing. The doctor has not seen any of this," Lynch Sr. said outside his home. "There's no entry [wounds] whatsoever."

He said his daughter, who is at a military hospital, had surgery on her back.

"She didn't have any feeling in her feet." More surgery was scheduled for today on her fractured legs and right arm, he said.

The family spent several hours yesterday with Pentagon officials discussing her time in Iraq. They hoped to learn more about what happened on March 23, when her 507th Maintenance Company convoy was attacked after making a wrong turn in southern Iraq.

Gregory Lynch said he had not discussed his daughter's captivity with her during telephone conversations. He and his wife, Deadra, did not immediately elaborate on what they discussed with military officials.

"They have successfully done one surgery on her," he said, smiling as he joked about pink casts for her broken limbs. "There will be other surgeries. It's going to take time and patience. She's in real good spirits."

Lynch left Iraq on a stretcher with an American flag folded across her chest, and arrived at a U.S. air base in Germany late Wednesday for treatment at the military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

Members of the medical crew that accompanied her on the 8 1/2-hour flight to Germany from Kuwait said she appeared clear-headed, smiling and alert, but didn't discuss her plight with them.

"She must be as hard as nails," said Air Force Capt. Shean Galvin.

The Lynches said that when they spoke with their daughter by telephone at 3:30 a.m. Eastern time yesterday, she wanted to know if people in her community were aware of what happened to her and if her rescue had been reported in her hometown newspaper.

	Greg Lynch, Jr., 21, talks about the phone call from his sister, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19. The two enlisted in the Army on the same day. The elder Lynch was granted leave to return to his family when his sister was captured. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

"She asked, 'Did I make the Parkersburg News,' " her brother, Gregory Jr., 21, said yesterday morning. "Mom (Deadra Lynch) told her, 'You made the local paper and a whole lot more.' She has no idea the stir she's caused."

Newspapers and television networks and stations from around the United States and Europe have sent reporters to the Lynch home in rural Wirt County.

Gregory Jr. said he didn't speak with his sister but his mother described her voice as louder and livelier than her first phone call home last night.

The family still doesn't know when Jessica will return to an Army hospital in this country or when they will be able to see her.

Staff writer Cindi Lash and The Associated Press contributed to this report.