Here is a look at the life of Jessica Lynch, motivational speaker and former prisoner of war.
Personal:
Birth date: April 26, 1983
Birth name: Jessica Dawn Lynch
Birth place: Palestine, West Virginia
Father: Gregory Lynch, a truck driver
Mother: Deadra Lynch
Children: with Wes Robinson: Dakota Ann Robinson, January 19, 2007
Education: West Virginia University at Parkersburg, B.A. in Elementary Education, 2011
Military service: US Army, 2001-2003, Private First Class
Other Facts:
Enlisted in the army after graduating from high school.
In December 2002, she signed up for a four year extension in the military. She had already received one promotion and was scheduled for another in November 2003.
Was a supply clerk with the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company out of Fort Bliss, Texas.
An Iraqi lawyer alerted American soldiers to Jessica’s whereabouts, and helped with planning her rescue. He and his family were later granted asylum.
Timeline:
March 23, 2003 – Taken prisoner of war (POW) near Nasiriyah, Iraq, after the convoy she is traveling in is ambushed. The convoy had taken several wrong turns and fallen behind. The Pentagon says Lynch was riding in a Humvee when it was hit by rocket-propelled grenades and crashed into a US truck that had jackknifed in front of it.
April 1, 2003 – Is rescued from an Iraqi hospital in Nasiriyah by US Special Forces and taken to Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
April 3, 2003 – Has her first surgery at a hospital in Germany, an operation to repair injuries to her back.
April 12, 2003 – Returns to the United States to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
July 21, 2003 – Is presented with the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and POW medals for her service and captivity in Iraq during a ceremony at Walter Reed.
July 22, 2003 – Lynch is discharged from Walter Reed and is brought home to West Virginia via Blackhawk helicopter and motorcade for the last five miles. Cheering crowds line the route of her motorcade.
August 22, 2003 – Is honorably discharged from the Army for medical reasons.
September 2, 2003 – Agrees to a one million dollar book deal with publisher Alfred A. Knopf.
November 10, 2003 – “I Am a Soldier, Too,” Lynch’s biography by Rick Bragg, goes on sale.
November 11, 2003 – Lynch’s first television interview airs. It is a 90-minute interview on ABC’s “Primetime” with Diane Sawyer.
January 19, 2007 – Gives birth to a baby girl she names Dakota Ann Robinson, in honor of Lynch’s best friend, Army Spc. Lori Ann Piestewa of Tuba City, Arizona, who was the first woman to be killed in combat in Iraq.
April 24, 2007 – Lynch testifies before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about misinformation surrounding her capture and rescue in 2003 and the effect it had on her.
