Private Jessica says President is misusing her 'heroism' Edward Helmore, according to reports in the November 9, 2003 The Observer When American Private Jessica Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi hospital last April, President George Bush's administration and much of the US media was gripped by a dramatic tale of blonde, all-American heroism.
Misgivings characterising Lynch's story are coming to a head: last week she accused the administration of manipulating her story for propaganda, saying she was not a heroine at all; accusations that she'd been raped were disputed by appalled Iraqi doctors who first treated her, and the army was accused of insensitivity and racism for awarding Lynch a full disability pension while others from her ambushed maintenance company, including Shoshana Johnson, the black cook wounded and captured by Iraqis, will receive barely a third of Lynch's discharge package.
