Jessica Lynch: Hero?

[Dan]

OK, first off, everybody fighting in Iraq is a hero, no argument about that.

Here's my problem with Jessica Lynch being touted as a great american hero. She didn't really do anything. She got captured, she got rescued. Shouldn't the people who rescued her be the ones with their own made-for-tv movie?

I will say I think she's more of a hero for coming out and revealing that some aspects of her ordeal was sensationalized in the media than for her actual ordeal.

Just my opinion, what do you guys think?

 

[Bry]

I didn't see the tv movie, but I understand it was based on the Iraqi doctor's account and not Jessica's, and that he was more the "hero" of the portrayal than Jessica. But like I said, I didn't see it.

 

[SLClemens]

I think the medical staff who risked their lives and donated their own blood to save her should be the object of a film - but since when have Arab muslims made commerically viable heroes?

I never really thought of Lynch as a hero in any case - just a teenager getting some college money and thinking that she's serving her country in the process. Nevertheless, I've come to admire her honest and frank responses in the last week. At least someone's thinking straight about all this.

And since she's no saint, just an average but not-bad-looking young lady, when Hustler publishes topless pictures of her in January could someone please scan and post them in the over-18 section?

 

[AmericanLiberal]

I agree. It is quite a morale boost in any war to have identifiable heroes. In this case, Jessica Lynch was the only person who won notable individual coverage in the war due to the dramatic rescue operation. I believe there were some other people who were rescued as well. I think it's important to have high morale during a war, but she's not a hero for what she did, and I didn't think much of her until she came out against previous reporting of her ordeal earlier this week. That was the first time she really spoke out and showed the nation who she was, instead of just being a victim or an image created by the media and the Pentagon.

SLClemens, about the topless pictures, it might be pleasing to see them, but it's very filthy disgusting that something like that would be released.

 

[Mark K]

I agree with you completely, Dan.

They call these things “feel-good” stories, but I’ve had a “don’t-feel-so-good” feeling about this one. If she had received the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving a half-dozen lives, leading them to safety through the desert on two broken legs, absolutely. A person like that deserves to “get paid”. But she is cashing in on being nothing more than a Penelope Pitstop of the desert while, as you say, there are so many other REAL stories that could be done. What also gets me, then they have the nerve to rip off the title from an all-time-epic Oscar-winning starring-Tom Hanks war movie. Unreal.

You know though, I don’t blame her. I really wish her the best. It’s our make-a-buck-off-whatever-we-can modern Media I blame. Before they got involved she WAS somewhat of a hero.

 

[Dan]

I don't think she's all that much to blame at all. She didn't come back from Iraq and immediately sell her story or anything, the media made her a "hero", she seems to just be going along for the ride (in my opinion).

Honestly, if you did nothing and suddenly all the papers were calling you a great person, then someone offered you a six-figure sum to make a movie about something you did, can you honestly say you wouldn't go for it?