Jessica Lynch happy women eligible for combat roles

Jessica Lynch, who shot to fame as a POW during the Iraq war in 2003, is featured in the South Charleston, W.Va. Christmas Parade on Dec. 10, 2011. / AP Photo/Bob Bird

MORGANTOWN, West Virginia Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch says it's good news that the U.S. military will now allow women to serve in combat roles.

Lynch was 19 when she was captured in Iraq after her Army unit took a wrong turn and came under attack in 2003. She was rescued after nine days.

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Women in combat

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Gen. Myers: Can't change training to accommodate women

Lynch urges Americans to push U.S. officials to ensure both male and female soldiers have proper training and equipment.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday announced the change, saying that allowing women to fill combat roles will strengthen the U.S. military's ability to win wars. It overturns a 1994 rule prohibiting women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units.

CBS News correspondent David Martin reports the order will open 200,000 more jobs to women, primarily in the Army and Marines. The services have until May to draw up a plan for opening all units to women and until the end of 2015 to actually implement it.

Military leaders must decide which, if any, jobs will still be open only to men. Retired Gen. Richard Myers, a CBS News senior military security analyst, said on "CBS This Morning" Thursday that the requirements to reach such positions likely won't change.

"As the services look at this, I think the one thing that they'll probably look at is not changing training standards to accommodate women," said Myers, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "When we brought women fighter pilots into the Air Force, we didn't change our training standards, and women are totally accepted as part of the crew force in bombers and fighters and so forth."

• Lifting ban on women in combat presents challenge to military leaders
• Panetta to lift ban on women in combat

[burfal]

She was brave enough to tell the truth, which is more than you'd get from most of the Washington status quo. The cesspool of eroding morality that leads our country.

[Vartoonian]

She was neither a hero nor a coward. Just a poorly-trained kid leveraged into a political figure whom she is not and did not ask to be.

[Alternagirl81]

Jessica Lynch is a liar. She even admitted on film this was all a fabricated hoax, she was never a POW. Do some research people. Pat Tillman was part of this also. He is dead now.

[burfal]

you're stupid. Use the internet to get an education at least. Your immaturity is annoying like a *******.

[truthsayer1]

***Female hero (Liberal media)
Jessica Lynch. 4-2-2003. NY times, Post,Newsweek, "Lynch as Rambo" Fight to death, shot and stabbed. (Not stabbed or shot. Injuries and unconscious, in accident. Did not fire her weapon.)

Kimberly Munley ft. hood heroine. Hailed by Liberal media as a heroine for bringing down Nidal Hasan.
(Actually Mark Todd shot him.)

Time to crawl out of your phantasy bubble and realize that females should not be allowed in combat and police patrol vehicles.They are not physically and mentally capable of being in violent areas. (Despite liberal/hollywood's indoctrination.)

[StopSleeping]

Here's the real story.

We gave her three bottles of blood, two of them from the medical staff because there was no blood at this time,"said Dr Harith al-Houssona, who looked after her throughout her ordeal. "I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle. Then I did another examination. There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only RTA, road traffic accident," he recalled. "They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."

The doctors told us that the day before the special forces swooped on the hospital the Iraqi military had fled. Hassam Hamoud, a waiter at a local restaurant, said he saw the American advance party land in the town. He said the team's Arabic interpreter asked him where the hospital was. "He asked: 'Are there any Fedayeen over there?' and I said, 'No'." All the same, the next day "America's finest warriors" descended on the building.

"We heard the noise of helicopters," says Dr Anmar Uday. He says that they must have known there would be no resistance. "We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital.

"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried, 'Go, go, go', with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show - an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors." All the time with the camera rolling. The Americans took no chances, restraining doctors and a patient who was handcuffed to a bed frame.

There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Al-Houssona had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance. "I told her I will try and help you escape to the American Army but I will do this very secretly because I could lose my life." He put her in an ambulance and instructed the driver to go to the American checkpoint. When he was approaching it, the Americans opened fire. They fled just in time back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch

[RetiredArmy_Nurse]

And just what in this "story" makes her any less a hero? Support our Troops seems to have no meaning for these neocons. I cannot believe the opinionated hateful drivel in these postings. Where are our fellow vets to spring to the defense of one of our own? It seems the only one reading this trash is me.

[StopSleeping]

Please! This idiot threw down her weapon. Her own stupidity lead to her capture. She's just an inept private the media idolized because it suited them. God, go away already.

[Alternagirl81]

She lied about the whole thing! Ask Pat Tillman...oh wait they killed him! You can see her lying on YouTube, she later admits the whole story was a propaganda deal...

[tjl456]

Alright, I want you people, especially you retired military, to tell the young ladies who deployed during the last few years and came home with no legs or arms that they were not in combat. That being said, now I want all women to register with selective service when they turn 18 years old. And if the draft is ever reinstated, I want an equal percentage of draftees to be women that is in the population, and I believe that is 51%. How is that for political correct? Hey lefties, you can not have part of it without all of it.......

[brsinai]

@inbethlehem-And since they instituted their equality act, how effective has the IDF been?

[brsinai]

Geez, talk about your irrelevant Soldiers. Lynch was actually substandard and only a topic of discussion because of some truly bad decision-making. While it is fair for her to have a position on the new policy, it is in no way any sort of "expert" opinion.

[DuaneUrban]

The only reason she survived was because an officer had a crush on her and let her live. That was what was reported back in the day...

[DuaneUrban]

Jessica Lynch also got raped while in captivity but hey like they say misery likes company.