Cruel Talk about Pfc. Jessica Lynch

Posted on November 10, 2003 in Encounters PTSD War

They wait, when they should turn to journeys,

They stiffen, when they should bend.

“Women” – Louise Bogan

I do not think it is my imagination when I observe women being among the harshest critics of Pfc. Jessica Lynch. “I don’t believe her,” a friend said to me tonight in the Barnes and Noble Cafe. “She was in a hospital and she was in bed. How could she not notice if a man was on top of her or not?”

No explanation of mine sufficed. Was it Jessica’s blonde hair and blue eyes that enraged this other woman against her so, I wondered? Do we forget our own innocence at that age, even when we have pierced or been pierced a thousand times? Who is on trial in the mind? Jessica Lynch or ourselves?

We should show ourselves some mercy, I think. It’s clear that if we do not, no one will.