The public life of Private Lynch
By Anna Cock
The waif-like American poster girl for the war in Iraq is all grown up and dressed up - and with plenty of places to go. Having celebrated her 21st birthday this year, former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch is now in demand on the lucrative public speaking circuit in the US and appears to be just as comfortable treading the red carpet.
Rescue ... Jessica Lynch is carried to safety by US special forces last year.
Photographed this week at Glamour magazine's Women of the Year awards in New York, Lynch conveys a sense of vulnerable sophistication in a slinky pink-trimmed black halterneck outfit, leaning on the stick she still needs to get around.
Doctors are not sure she will ever walk unassisted, but the two hours each day that she devotes to physical therapy prove she is determined to do so. It's that determination that has propelled Lynch on to star billing at a series of motivational seminars, where the girl from West Virginia is cast alongside former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, comedian Jerry Lewis and re tired general Tommy Franks.
Her topic is perseverance, something she drew upon through her capture in a deadly ambush in Iraq last year and dramatic rescue that was followed by months of surgery on her shattered body.
This time last year, Lynch was only just emerging from a hospital bed into the public eye, and through a biography written by Rick Bragg, I Am a Soldier, Too, she made her story her own. She also won a Glamour magazine award last year, and still talks about meeting entertainer Britney Spears at the ceremony.
At the Golden Globes this year, Lynch was further drawn into the cult of celebrity, hanging out with Leonardo DiCaprio at an after-party in Beverly Hills and clearly enjoying her newfound status.
In exchange for a donation to the Operation Purple program she supports to help the children of American soldiers, Lynch enjoyed a three-day jaunt in the Bahamas aboard a new cruise ship she christened in February.
The slight blonde, who earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star from her ordeal in Iraq, attracts a crowd of well-wishers wherever she goes. But despite the attention and the new opportunities, Lynch craves a normal existence and is trying to choose a college where she can study teaching.
"I'm just a country girl," she insisted recently. She says the attention lavished upon her "is something I'm not used to, and probably never will be. I do want my life back to normal, because it's hard, it's so hard.
"But at the same time I'm like, 'Wow!' I get to go to New York, I get to go to Hollywood. I get to hang out with people like Britney and Leonardo."
She also reveals she is grappling with decisions about her education and relationship with boyfriend Ruben Contreras, as well as finding an answer to the philosophical question about why she survived the ambush in March last year that killed so many of her comrades.
"Obviously there has to be a reason," she says. "I don't know what it is yet, so I have to explore all these things to figure it out."
At the seminars in which she has been taking part - the next one is being held next week in California - Lynch's message is: "If I can do it, you can.
"I was put in one of the worst situations there is out there," she says, of winning against all odds.
Having previously expressed a fear of public speaking, Lynch is now standing before crowds of up to 20,000. Her spokeswoman Aly Goodwin Gregg says she is getting over her fear.
"She has said it's easier to speak to a crowd of 15,000 than it is to a crowd of 15 because you can look out into the crowd and you don't really see the faces," Gregg says. "But she still gets nervous and she is very shy."
©The Daily Telegraph
©2004 News Limited