Words that Never Leave You: “I thought of my family, my friends. I created scenes in my head of what they would be thinking. I always tried to make those scenes as positive as I could.”
Part Thirty-One in an ongoing series from Hollie's book "Words That Never Leave You: Fifty Pearls of Wisdom and Reflection from Survivors Across the World."
For Jessica Lynch, every waking moment serves as a haunting reminder of all she endured as America’s first prisoner of war in the early days of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
Just three days after President George W. Bush announced the invasion, Jessica’s unit embarked on a trip toward Baghdad in a convoy of vehicles. Only her vehicle was separated from the others following trouble with their navigation equipment. Then, suddenly, as they neared the southern city of Nasiriyah, the horrors of an ambush unfolded. A rocket-propelled grenade ripped through the rear of the vehicle, causing it to crash into an 18-wheeler and Jessica — who suffered crushing injuries to her legs and feet and a broken back — to lose consciousness.
When she awoke, soldiers of then-dictator Saddam Hussein surrounded the 19-year-old private first class. Jessica’s POW nightmare had begun, and the events to follow would not be lost to the fog of war but — to this day — remain vivid in her mind. By April 1, 2003, Jessica had made it through nine arduous days as a POW. Her rescue marked the first of an American prisoner of war since World War II and the first of a woman.
But how does one endure such an ordeal, wounded with no sense of time or place, without fracturing into a million pieces?
“I thought of my family, my friends. I created scenes in my head of what they would be thinking,” Jessica highlighted. “I always tried to make those scenes as positive as I could.”
That seems to ring true with all the extraordinary survivors I meet – when everything, your freedom and your dignity, is stripped away, all you can do is find the silver lining that there is something worth your fight.
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** Short read of meaningful lessons gleaned from the ordinary forced to become extraordinary
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