No question, five. This kid was in a terrible situation and was seriously hurt. May God bless her and may she recover completely. NOW, let's be realistic. I doubt she even knows how "played" she was by the Bush administration. A sweet, young, female US soldier in an Iraqi hopspital? Merry Christmas, boys! Let's storm into that peaceful hospital and "save" her. Oh, and make sure we get it all on tape. The folks back home are getting restless waiting for us to find those pesky WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. We need to spin the hell outa this. Now they tell us she has amnesia? How convenient. It sure distracted us from the global discontent, huh?

First of all,God bless her and I hope she recovers as well as can be which I'm sure she will.Second of all,I'm sure she's an o.k kid and I have no vendeta against her at all.O.K,now for the downside of this story.She is 110# soaking wet and shouldn't have been in a crucial combat position.No man that weighs 110# that can run as fast or lift as much as Jessica would be admitted to any branch of the service.The service is like NASA and has turned into an affirmative action feel good program that the government has to concoct stories for when bad mistakes happen.Same goes for police and fire protection,I'm 6'6''-280# and don't want an unqualified affirmative action recipient trying to lift me out of a high rise building.Look at the so called top gun woman flyer that crashed a few years back off an aircraft carrier.There were 100's of men ahead of her as far as test scores etc.were concerned and she got promoted to fly ahead of them because she was a woman.Now she's a dead woman and I'm sure her parents are bitching now that she was allowed to fly when she wasn't as qualified.The government seems to be covering up and muddying up the waters about this whole Jessica event.I don't know what happened and no one ever will since they probably told her that she has selective amnesia.Hmmm,not much of a movie or book can be written if she blanks out about the whole thing.At first it was said she fought and shot the attackers and then it said all the U.S.corps guns jammed due to the sand storm.She was driving and most of her platoon died.I really can't say that she was responsible for the events but I can't say she was a hero either.Then her injuries weren't what they were said to be at first.Then the rescue mission got all fuzzied up where no one knows what happened.Then I heard where no one can get near her because they want to reprogram her what to say.The government does not want to shed bad light on the capabilities of women in the service where the people who don't want women in combat can say this was the perfect example of political corectness backfiring.In wars past alot of soldiers that did heroic things of mamouth proportions weren't recognised as being heros and the bar for that term has been lowered according to Colonel Hackworth who verbatum said just about what I did on the Jessica story. I say with a clear conscience that I am not an anti U.S.,anti President Bush or anti Jessica person in any way .I support the military and am patriotic and lean toward the conservative side as you can see from my other posts.I just think forcing political corectness and affirmative action quotas and programs has been a dismal failure where sometime inocent people have to pay with their lives.

She fell out of a truck and broke some bones, mostly likely she didn't put up any fight. She was then taken to an Iraqi hospital where doctors and nurses lined up to provide the necessary blood transfusion she required. Then special forces led a "dramatic" rescue. If by dramatic you mean special forces raiding an unguarded hospital and snatching her from the clutches of doctors and nurses, then yeah, dramatic. She became a pin-up girl for the Bush administration, American flags waving, people singing stars and stripes. Sometimes this place reminds me of the Soviet Union.

I'm sorry all that stuff happened to this little soldier...but guess what? When you enlist in the military stuff happens. I don't see any reason to single her out and make her a "hero" any more than any other person in the military. If she were a 35 year old, balding Marine Sgt. you'd have never seen the story. Face it, she was being used because of her age, size and gender not because of her experiences. Not only explotation but chauvanistic to boot. Let's move on.

Another boatload of BS foisted on the American public by the Bush Administration and the propaganda mill known as "The Mainstream Media." Another dubious instant celebrity who had very little actual merit to justify that public attention. Turns out her injuries were not as severe as originally exaggerated and it was not necessary to engage that elaborate helicopter rescue because her medical status was not particularly dire. Also turns out that her so-called "rescue" was nothing more than a photo op: her captors were long gone, the doors to the building where she was held were unlocked, but the arriving GIs dramatically busted down the door that didn't need to be busted down for the sake of TV cameras. In all fairness, she should never have been in the wrong place at the wrong time because U.S. forces didn't belong over there at all in the first place. This was not an altruistic act of liberation by the U.S. Government: this was a trashing of a soveriegn country under false pretenses (as it turns out, the WMD probably never existed, and if they did, the Bush Administration did not adequately plan, or develop resources to locate and secure these weapons: this dubious effort may have had the opposite effort intended in that terrorists, rather than a second-rate popgun tyrant, may possess the WMD at this point). This was a bullying of a backward third-world country with a fourth rate military; a major exercise in collateral damage that killed countless innocent Iraqi civilians and set off catastrophic conditions of deprivations, the threat of cholera, etc.; an ushering in of anarchy and the total destruction of social order; a "stick-em up" of the oil fields that actually belong to the Iraqi people, not the U.S. pertoleum industry; a series of photo ops that served to glorify the butchers we call "the U.S. military," and a transparent attempt to ensure GWB's re-election, as American are loathe to vote against a sitting President during a so-called time of war. In this, Lynch was used as a pawn in the game, the Bush Administration showed that it's dishonest to the core (what a change from Bill Clinton!), the media conducted itself in its typically misinforming and irresponsible fashion, and countless Americans were misled and manipulated for the political sake of the GOP. In a so-called "war against terrorism" that appears to have been about 33% exaggeration, 33% underestimation and 33% baldface lies, Jessica Lynch is just a tainted image of that unnecessary and ill-advised act of terror committed by the Bush Administration for the fallacious sake of national security: as it turns out, Americans abroad are even more at risk as a result of this idiocy, as displayed by the terrorist bombings that occured shortly after the so-called "end of the war."

If she really did all of those things that were reported, then she is truly an American hero.

Another national hero, but she gets way too much attention. I havent seen anything on the 11 fellow dead soldiers they found in the copmpound where they found her. Let's at least give them some honor, too.

Deserves every bit of acclaim she gets!

I commend her on her bravery and her loyalty towards the US military services. She showed great courage when faced with the Iraqi forces and didn't give in until she was forced to(no more bullets). I'm sure by now though, she wishes that the news would stop publicizing her story, she probably misses her privacy. I am glad that she came home safely too.

I do not deny that she is a brave woman who fought for the USA, and bravo for her. I am glad she survived and made it home. the only thing that bothers me is she is not the only soldier over there fighting and risking their lives. She is getting too much press. I do not blame her because she did not ask for it. I hope the press leaves her alone so she can have some privacy.

Excellent display of courage. She wasn't going down without a fight. Who knows how many Iraqi soldiers she killed before she unloaded her clip on them and was taken POW. The French could learn something from her.