WASHINGTON — Jessica Lynch remembers nothing of the ambush that landed her at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, but that hasn't stopped the offers from media conglomerates and Hollywood agents vying for exclusive rights to tell her story.
As she fights to regain use of her arms, legs and back, the 20-year-old private from Palestine, W.Va., has become a Rorschach test for the nation's ideological divide over the war in Iraq.
To some, her story is further evidence of Pentagon perfidy, a pattern of exaggeration they say began with inflated estimates of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and ended with the hyped heroism of the soldiers who brought Lynch to safety. To others, her rescue from an Iraqi hospital housing Hussein's Fedayeen fighters is a case of courage, evidence that the military is one of the few institutions of government that delivers -- even amid the fog of war.
And to almost everyone, the Jessica Lynch saga is the latest example of a cutthroat media churning with greed, exploitation and sensationalism.
Some things are not in doubt: Lynch joined the Army out of high school and was serving with the 507th Maintenance Company in the war in Iraq. What happened to her in Iraq, however, depends on who's telling the story.
The convoy she was riding in took a wrong turn. Or it was directed to the wrong place by exhausted American field commanders. Surrounded by Iraqis, she fired back, killing several, a la Rambo. Or she was too injured by the crash of her truck to shoot at anyone. Or she tried to shoot, but her weapon jammed. Captured by Iraqis, she was treated kindly. Or she was abused. She was brought to safety the day before in an ambulance, only to be turned away by U.S. troops. Or she was not. The next day she was rescued by a team of U.S. commandos who knew Iraqi soldiers had abandoned the hospital, which is why the commandos fired blanks. Or they came prepared for a fight.
Still, for all the discrepancies, the offers come. Mesmerized by Lynch's waif-like figure, her blond hair and her war wounds, Hollywood and New York have descended, coupling appeals for exclusive rights with sweeteners like CBS' offer to let her be the host of an MTV special. Given Washington's vilification of Hussein in the run-up to war, it was understandable that Jessica Lynch came to resemble one of those damsels in distress of the silent-movie era, like Mary Pickford tied to the train tracks.
