I am just about sick and tired of this Jessica Lynch tripe. Just what America doesn’t need is to rally around some more sentimentally bogus bullshit like we did after the WTC terror attacks. Look where all that sympathizing and empathizing got us. The economy is gone to shit, we are faced with hostilities involving our troops directly in at least 4 areas of the world. The only country on our side is a country whose authoritarian rule we had to crush only 220 years ago. “We’re in a tight spot.”

Soldiers are getting killed daily in Iraq, though the “major hostilities are over.” But here we sit, barraged with words and images about a soldier who did her job, albeit mistakenly, and is being proclaimed a hero. Let’s not forget that all of her squad-mates died because they took a wrong turn. They died in a stupid way, in a stupid war. In fact, that’s how people die in wars. The majority don’t die charging the gun turrets of the Remagen Bridge, they die when their Jeep flips from taking a corner too fast. They die from the stray bullet fired in desperation from the other side of the lines. That’s what makes war hell.

So let’s not drown Jessica in our slathering drool chattering about how heroic she was. I’m glad she made it back. I am sorry that she lost her friends and comrades. But what I am most sorry about is that her simple life will be destroyed because of all this false attention. She will become some beacon of morality and hope in a time and a war that is bereft of neither. I wish Jessica Lynch the fastest recovery and the best future, but, I feel strongly that she is no hero, but simply someone who did her job to the best of her ability as she took an oath to do. Let’s reserve the hero worship for those that truly deserve it, not those the media tells us deserve it. That’s pretty inflammatory talk up there. Not much respect for the soldiers defending my right to say what I said. I realize that, and I also realize that it’s not Jessica’s fault. She’s a simple girl caught up in a world that will chew her up and spit her out just to rub two nickels together. It’s not fair, but we the consumers are the ones making it happen. Those of us who buy newspapers, watch cable news programs, and even visit news websites. All of that desire for information creates a an environment in which well-meaning people like Jessica Lynch and I are put at loggerheads over our status in this socio-corporate milieu.

The other side of the coin is that while Jessica becomes a figurehead of sorts, the very fact of all this attention on her will deprive some well-deserved young soldier from having his story told. His actions, heroic or not, will left in the sands of Iraq and the desert of his psyche with little support structure and even less sympathy when he returns. He’ll stand in the crowd somewhere hearing Jessica stumble through a speech. He’ll be thinking that given 100 days he could have thought of something a little more profound than Jessica’s desperate plea turned rally cry, “I am an American soldier.”

In the end, they will both fade away and turn to the passions and desires that ruled their lives before someone decided they needed to kill or be killed. Sure, Jessica’s story will crop up from time to time and kids and grandkids will dig out the newspaper clippings and Internet printouts, but what they won’t have is the true, focused story of war that the unsung soldier has. Their experience will be candy-coated while on the other side of town as he turns the office lights out, Iraq will come flooding back to the unknown soldier. At home later, he’ll tell his son the story of the first time he knew he was going to die.

That has always been the strength of this country. America’s ability to persevere, to absorb injury, and to adapt to circumstance makes its people not only strong and powerful, but at times, caring and compassionate. So, perhaps there should be a little more of that in this story. Jessica Lynch knows that. That’s why she consistently turns her interviews into stories about her squad-mates. Never forgetting the lost loved one is the truly heroic act, and in that light, perhaps Jessica Lynch really is a hero despite the paradoxical attempts by the media to change that.