Former Prisoner of War Jessica Lynch says she is living the kind of normal life she wanted.
But the Wirt County woman, now 29, says what happened to her in the early days of the War In Iraq are never far from her mind.
“I think it’s always going to be a part of me,” Lynch said on Monday’s MetroNews Talkline.
Monday marked ten years since U.S. forces rescued her from a hospital in Nasiriya. The U.S. Army Private was captured more than a week earlier when her convoy with the 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed.
Eleven of her fellow soldiers, including her close friend Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa, died in the firefight.
Lynch, who was 19 at the time, survived but was seriously injured. “It’s part of my life every day. There’s not a morning that I don’t wake up and think about what I went through,” she said.
Ten years and 21 surgeries later, she still has no feeling in her left leg and wears a brace to walk. She’s facing future surgeries, including those on her right foot.
And, she says, she’s constantly asking herself questions. “Why did this happen to me? And the survivor’s guilt of why did I get to come home and not Lori or some of the other comrades that were killed that day?”
These days, Lynch is working as a substitute teacher in Wirt County and raising her daughter Dakota Ann, 6, who was named for her friend, Lori. She is hoping to earning her master’s degree in communications at West Virginia University next year.
“Really, I’m just blessed to be here,” she said.
Lynch has loaned a number of personal items to the state Culture Center, including her Prisoner of War Medal, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, for a new exhibit.
She was scheduled to help open the exhibit during a reception on Monday night in Charleston.