Pfc. Jessica Lynch receives hero’s welcome

? Jessica Lynch returned home a hero Tuesday as thousands of flag-waving well-wishers saluted the former POW hailed for her bravery under fire at the height of the war.

“Hi. It’s great to be home,” Lynch, 20, nervously told a horde of reporters gathered to record her first public words since her capture and rescue in Iraq four months ago.

“I would like to say thank you to everyone who hoped and prayed for my safe return.”

Wearing a black beret and a dark green Army dress uniform resplendent with new medals, a blue cast on her left foot, Lynch was carried out of a Black Hawk helicopter, placed in a wheelchair and rolled onto a makeshift stage at a sports club.

The soft-spoken supply clerk, who still has trouble walking, thanked the Iraqis who cared for her, the soldiers who rescued her and the doctors who tended to her broken bones at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

She recalled Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, 23, one of the nine soldiers from her unit, the 507th Maintenance Co., who were killed during the firefight in Nassiriyah.

“I miss Lori. She was my best friend,” Lynch said of Piestewa, one of the few American Indian women in the military. “She fought beside me and it was an honor to have served with her.”

Sporting a sparkling promise ring on her right ring finger, Lynch flashed a girlish smile as she thanked Sgt. Ruben Contreras — her boyfriend and a member of her unit — for his dedication and support.

“Ruben, you never let me give up,” she said, her hands trembling as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “When I got down, you picked me up. When I wanted to quit, you made me keep going. You’re my inspiration, and I love you.”

Pfc. Jessica Lynch is joined by her brother Spc. Greg Lynch, Jr., right, and boyfriend Sgt. Ruben Contreras, front, in a motorcade through Elizabeth, W.Va. Lynch on Tuesday returned home to West Virginia after spending four months in the hospital after being injured in an ambush in Iraq.

It was the only time she looked truly relaxed during her three-minute remarks. Only twice did she flash the beaming smile captured in her Army portrait reprinted worldwide.

Security was heavy throughout the day, as bomb-sniffing dogs checked bags and police marksmen lay on rooftops along the route of Lynch’s motorcade.

After the speech, Lynch headed home perched on the back of a red convertible, her hand resting on her boyfriend’s shoulder during most of the seven-mile ride to her family’s home in the tiny town of Palestine.

The hometown crowd was unfazed by an Army report this month that cast doubt on Lynch’s heroics. It debunked earlier reports that Lynch bravely fought off her attackers and attributed her wounds not to gunshots, but to the crash of her Humvee into a tractor-trailer. Still, the ordeal won her the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War medal.

Lynch clasped her hands to her mouth and gasped as the car pulled up to the white wood-frame house on Mayberry Run, spruced up with a wheelchair-accessible addition, a friend said. An American flag fluttered from the second-floor balcony.

A chocolate pie — her favorite dessert — was waiting inside.