POW shares brutal details of experience in biography

Advance press of former POW Jessica Lynch's biography includes the shocking revelation the 19-year-old Army supply clerk was raped and sodomized by her Iraqi captors.

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News of the assault disturbs military advocate Elaine Donnelly, who has pressed the Pentagon for such details to no avail.

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Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness, an independent public-policy organization that specializes in military personnel issues, and is a member of WND's Speakers Bureau, blames Lynch's tragic experience on what she calls "social engineering" policies instituted in the military over the last decade by "Pentagon feminists" seeking to advance the careers of servicewomen at the cost, she says, of military morale, efficiency and readiness.

Donnelly has called on Commander in Chief Bush to give direction to the Pentagon to roll back Clinton-era policies such as females serving in combat roles, gender quotas, co-ed basic training, the deployment of single mothers and pregnant servicewomen and "overly generous pregnancy policies that subsidize and therefore increase single parenthood."

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At the time of the false report, Donnelly suspected military officials were spinning the Jessica Lynch story to head off criticism for placing Lynch in a combat-support position in which she became a POW.

Donnelly argues that once Lynch was captured, she became a public figure plastered all over television sets around the world. She maintains that the issue of whether war crimes have been committed carries policy implications.

"If the Pentagon puts a happy face on the situation and describes her injuries as only being broken bones, they're not being honest with the American public and with women recruits."

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This is not the first time the assault of a female POW in the Iraqi theater of war was kept under wraps. Flight surgeon Rhonda Cornum was sexually assaulted after being taken prisoner in the Persian Gulf War, . . . .

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"While I was subjected to an unpleasant episode of sexual abuse during my captivity," she said, "it did not represent a threat to life, limb or chance of being released, and therefore occupied a much lower level of concern than it might have under other circumstances."

Cornum offers pre-deployment advice for female soldiers, recommending birth-control methods such as the IUD or implants and suggests they be commenced before deployment "to avoid problems for monogamous women whose spouses might not understand the risk issue."

Donnelly and other military advocates question the nonchalance afforded to the sexual assault of female soldiers.

"This is an opportunity to search our souls as a nation and determine whether we want this to continue," she said.