Private First Class Jessica Lynch was a 19-year-old U.S. Army supply clerk with the 507th Maintenance Company based in Fort Bliss, Texas. While stationed in Iraq, she was injured and captured by Iraqi forces on March 23, 2003 after her convoy was ambushed near the city of Nasiriyah. Eleven other soldiers in the company were killed in the ambush. On April 1, 2003, U.S. forces, acting on a tip from a local Iraqi man, rescued Lynch from an Iraqi hospital. Private Lynch was flown back to the United States and awarded the Bronze Star for Bravery. She was given an honorable discharge in August 2003. Lynch's rescue was the first of an American POW since World War II and the first ever of a woman.
