Private put up brave fight prior to her capture

SPIRITED and hungry, rescued prisoner of war Private Jessica Lynch arrived in Germany for treatment of two broken legs and bullet wounds she suffered in a fierce gunfight with her Iraqi captors.

The 19-year-old Army supply clerk shot several Iraqi soldiers during the March 23 ambush that led to her capture. She kept firing even after she had several gunshot wounds, finally running out of ammunition, US officials said yesterday.

“She was fighting to the death,” one official said. “She did not want to be taken alive.”

Lynch’s mother said she wasn’t surprised her daughter would resist so vigorously. “She’s a fighter. That’s exactly what I would expect her to do,” Deadra Lynch said on the US TV programme, The Today Show.

Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi hospital in a daring night raid on Tuesday by US commandos acting on a CIA tip. The Iraqi informant gave Lynch’s exact location in the hospital.

The former POW left Iraq on a stretcher with an American flag folded across her chest, and arrived at a US air base in Germany for treatment at the military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre.

From Germany, she spoke by telephone with her family at their home in Palestine, West Virginia.

“She’s real spirited. She hasn’t eaten in eight days and she’s hungry,” said her father, Greg Lynch. “She wants some food.”

Randy Coleman, a military spokesman in West Virginia, said Lynch had fractures in both legs, and her family said she’d also injured her arm. US officials in Kuwait said earlier she had two broken legs, a broken arm and at least one gunshot wound.

Members of the medical crew that accompanied her on the eight-and-a-half 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 Captain Shean Galvin.

“She’s weak, she knows she’s injured and they’re doing the best they can to get her so she can travel,” said her brother Greg Lynch Jr.

Her father said she will be transferred to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington as soon as possible.

Lynch joined the Army after graduating from high school in 2001.

Her brother Greg enlisted the same day.

Her 18-year-old sister Brandi will report for duty in August.

“I still want to do it even more. It’s the Lynch blood,” Brandi Lynch said.