JESSICA LYNCH FEELS LIKE "MOST HATED PERSON IN AMERICA"

(06/07/2007)
Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch says she still gets hate mail, four years after the Wirt County native's capture and long after she disputed the military's exaggerated accounts of her capture in Iraq.

Lynch was severely injured when her Army convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah in 2003.

She was later rescued by American troops from an Iraqi hospital, but she says the military embellished her role to make it sound more heroic.

Lynch, who testified before Congress in April, has received some 30,000 mostly supportive letters.

She says there are still lots of critics.

Lynch says she sometimes thinks she's the most hated person in America.

She says she never misled anyone, but the Army wanted a war hero so badly that it portrayed her as one.

Lynch contends she is paying the price, even though the government corrected the story.