PVT. LYNCH SAYS HOSPITAL OFFERED RESCUERS A KEY - Tells AP Military Account Greatly Exaggerated

(11/11/2003)

Jessica Lynch told the Associated Press she isn't about to take credit for something she didn't do. In the AP interview, the former POW said she is disturbed by early reports that dramatized her rescue by US troops and falsely said she went down shooting in an Iraqi ambush. A video shot by the Americans who rescued her nine days later at an Iraqi hospital said they encountered resistance in a daring raid. Lynch's new book says hospital staff did not resist, and even offered US troops a key. The US military early in the war said Lynch waged a fierce gun battle with Iraqi fighters who ambushed her 507th Maintenance Company on March 23rd at Nasiriyah. She has since said her rifle jammed, and she didn't get off a single shot. The 20-year-old Wirt County native took pains to say she does not care why the military may have exaggerated her story, and that she considers the soldiers who rescued her to be heroes. Lynch's biography, "I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story" hit bookstores today.

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