I just can’t seem to sync up with this Private Jessica plotline. I somehow got sidetracked into feeling all maudlin and sympathetic toward Private Shoshana Johnson, and when the first soft-focus pieces about Jessica appeared I gave them a pass. Joined the Army to get out of her West Virginia poverty, just saving up money for college, wanted to be a kindergarten teacher; it was just a little too hard-sell for me. Nothing against her personally; she seemed like a great person. I just wasn’t interested in that particular story at that particular time.

Then, when the Big Daring Rescue happened, I was anchored in a little cove off a more or less desert island with no net, no news at all, really. So I missed that story.

Then when I saw the stories floating around from the foreign papers that were pointing out that the facts of the case didn’t quite match the Hollywood storyline that the Pentagon and their mouthpieces at Fox News were putting out, I dunno; I think I was just tired of the whole thing. And I was right in the thick of my reaching-out-to-the-conservatives impulse, and it just didn’t seem right to hit them over the head by harping on the Jessica story.

But anyway, there’s a new piece in Salon about it, and it’s pretty funny, and I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention this along with all the other lies witih which the Iraq war was sold to the American people. So go thou and fill thine eyes with the gritty, messy reality that is the Private Jessica story, for reals: Saving Pvt. Lynch: The made-for-TV movie. (It’s worth enduring the anti-Web clickthrough ad for the Well that gets you the 1-day pass.)

Update: Lies.com reader Pilar sent this helpful link, with more on the truth behind the Jessica story: The real ‘Saving Pte. Lynch’.

This entry was posted by jbc on Friday, May 16th, 2003 at 1:32 am and is filed under war. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.