Jessica Lynch Rescue In Iraq Story Remembered After 10 Years

The Jessica Lynch rescue in Iraq is being remembered 10 years after her story became well known.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, 19-year-old Army Private Jessica Lynch was rescued from her Iraqi captors in the early days of the war. To this day, the details of the Iraq rescue are fresh in the mind of Jessica Lynch:

“About every night I have some kind of dream where there’s someone chasing me. It’s hard. It really is mentally and physically draining. I’m very blessed and happy to be here, and I think that’s what counts the most, and if I tell myself that I’m OK, I eventually I start (thinking), ‘You know what? I can do this.’ ”

The rescue story of Jessica Lynch began on April as blacked-out Blackhawk helicopters and AC-130 gunships converged on the hospital grounds. A force of Marines, with tanks and armored personnel carriers, were ordered into Nasiriyah in a feint to draw attention away from the hospital. Army Rangers surrounded the hospital walls.

Commandos fired explosive charges into the hospital before barging in. Anmar Uday, an Iraqi doctor, remembers, “We heard the helicopters and we decided we would go to the radiology unit.” Fortunately, none of the hospital staff resisted and no shots were fired.

The US commandos found Jessica Lynch in a special sand-filled tub intended to ease the pain of bedsores. A Special Forces soldier called out, “Jessica Lynch, we’re the United States soldiers and we’re here to protect you and take you home.” In response, Jessica Lynch only said, “I’m an American soldier, too.”

Two other American bodies were recovered from the hospital morgue. The remaining seven bodies were buried near a soccer field because the morgue’s refrigerators could not slow decomposition. Navy SEALs were forced to dig up the bodies with their bare hands.

The Jessica Lynch Iraq rescue became a joyous moment in one of the darkest hours of the Iraqi war, when US troops were bogged down entering Baghdad. Back in the United States, Jessica Lynch struggled to recover from a broken back and broken legs that required an extensive network of rods and pins.

Do you remember when you first heard the Jessica Lynch Iraq rescue story?

[Image from Wikimedia Commons]