Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch hailed Lori Piestewa, the Hopi woman who died in Iraq, as a true hero during a House Oversight Government Reform Committee hearing on Tuesday.
Lynch and Piestewa became best friends while serving in the same unit. They came under fire in southern Iraq but the Army's account of the incident turned out to be inaccurate and misleading.
"My parent’s home in Wirt County [in West Virginia] was under siege of the media all repeating the story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting," she said. "It was not true."
Lynch said she never engaged in any gunfire despite media accounts that portrayed her as a hero. She said the true story ignored the contributions of Piestewa, the first Native woman to die during combat.
"My hero is my friend Lori who died in Iraq but set an example for a generation of Hopi and Native American women and little girls everywhere about the important contributions just one soldier can make in the fight for
freedom," Lynch said.
Lynch said she doesn't know which government officials spread the false stories or why they did so. She also blamed the media for running the information without getting all of the facts.
Get the Story:Panel Vows to Pursue Tillman Case (The Washington Post 4/25)
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Panel Hears About Falsehoods in 2 Wartime Incidents (The New York Times 4/25)
pwnyt Hearing Video/Testimony:
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