US woman soldier missing after ambush

A teenage American woman soldier is among a dozen soldiers reported missing after a supply convoy was ambushed in southern Iraq, her father said.

Private Jessica Lynch, 19, had joined the army because there were few jobs in her home town of Palestine, West Virginia. She worked as a supply clerk with the Army’s 507th Maintenance Corps, her father, Greg Lynch, said last night.

“The only thing they can tell us is she’s missing,” Mr Lynch said.

He said he was notified late Sunday night by an Army official accompanied by the West Virginia State Police.

Some members of the 507th were shown on Iraqi television as prisoners being questioned Sunday, but Jessica Lynch was not one of those pictured.

“We saw it on TV and kind of suspected,” Lynch said. “I just want them to bring her back safely – her and all the rest of the kids.”

Lorene Cumbridge, a 62-year-old cousin who lives near the Lynches, said Jessica – known to family and friends as Jesse – grew up playing at her home.

“She’s just a West Virginia country girl. Warm-hearted. Outgoing,” Cumbridge said. “I really thought growing up she would become an elementary school teacher. But for West Virginia children in some of the more rural areas, the military is the one good chance of getting an education and making something of themselves.”

Jean Offutt, a spokeswoman for Fort Bliss in Texas, where the 507th Maintenance Corps is based, said 10 or more of the soldiers who went missing on Sunday were with the company, which deployed last month with the 11th Air Defence Artillery Brigade. It is not considered a combat unit, officials said.

Mr Lynch said neighbours and friends had been dropping by and calling since his wife, Deidre, and Jessica’s 17-year-old sister, Brandi Renee, first learned the news.

“Everyone has been real supportive,” he said.

A yellow ribbon has been tied to a tree near the family’s mailbox and two others were attached to posts on the front porch. Two American flags flew from a second-floor porch.

Palestine, 70 miles north of Charleston, is a farming community in sparsely populated Wirt County, which had a 15% unemployment rate in January – one of the state’s highest.

The lack of opportunity and the military service of her older brother, Gregory Lynch, led Jessica into the Army, her father said. She signed up through the Army’s delayed-entry programme before graduating from Wirt County High School in Elizabeth.

“The Army offered a good deal,” he said.

Gregory Lynch is stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and was on his way home, the father said. “They are real close,” he said.

Lynch called his daughter a jokester and a magnet for children. He now fears, he said, that she may never get the chance to have any of her own.

“She really loved small kids,” he said. “That’s what makes it so bad.”

Wirt County Principal Ken Heiney said Jessica Lynch was active at the small school of about 325 students, where she played basketball and softball.

Heiney was meeting with teachers after school Monday to plan a special event for her, including distributing yellow ribbons to students and teachers.

Cumbridge said she would like for the world to know her cousin.

“We have so many Jesses over there right now,” she said. ”You turn on the TV and it just breaks your heart. There are a lot of families in West Virginia that have a Jesse, too, and they’re going to be feeling for the Lynch family.”