This might be a little
, but I thought it was interesting.
She isn't Jessica Lynch, but she fought in Iraq too
WASHINGTON: While soldier Jessica Lynch enjoys celebrity status, there are allegations that a compatriot who was similarly taken prisoner in Iraq is being discriminated against because she is African American.
Shoshana Johnson, a prisoner of war of the same rank and comrade-in-arms as Lynch, who went through the same kind of suffering and was injured in the war, has been pushed into the sidelines, say her supporters.
Johnson was looking forward to a quiet discharge from the army in a few days. Battle-scarred and weary, she hasn't said a word even as Lynch is giving interviews to all and every magazine published in the US.
However, Johnson is ready to break her peace because the army that is now forcing her to do so, reports say.
The military brass has informed her that she would receive a 30 percent disability benefit for her injuries.
Lynch, who is white and was rescued by Americans from an Iraqi hospital, was discharged in August and will receive an 80 percent disability benefit. The difference amounts to $600 or $700 a month in payments, and that is causing Johnson and her family to speak out.
They are so troubled by what they see as a "double standard" that they have enlisted Rev. Jesse Jackson to help make their case to the news media.
Jackson, who plans to plead Johnson's cause with the White House, the Pentagon and members of Congress, says the payment smacks of double standards and racism.
"Here's a case of two women, same (unit), same war; everything about their service commitment and their risk is equal...Yet there's an enormous contrast between how the military has handled these two cases," Jackson told The Washington Post.
Johnson's father, Claude Johnson, himself an army veteran, says while neither he nor his family begrudge Lynch her celebrity or disability payments, he believes that his daughter should get her due, according to e-mails sent by friends of Johnson.
The army, in denying charges of double standards, has said that claims are awarded to soldiers according to their injuries.
Johnson, 30, the mother of a three-year-old daughter, was held captive for 22 days, when her unit stumbled into an ambush in southern Iraq last March.
Eleven solders were killed and six, including Lynch and Johnson, were taken prisoners. Johnson was shot in both legs and is still traumatised by her war experience. In addition to walking with a limp, she suffers from bouts of depression, her friends say.
News Source Link
Ya think, Em? But don't worry - the press will ferret it out, just like they've sniggled out every other detail of this kid's life.
What's so wrong with that? At this moment, she's probably trying to figure out what's fact and what's fiction in her own mind since she's got memory loss. Until then, she should’ve waited on publishing a book IMHO.
It's not fair. 
IM4 ... you know I love you, but didn't you see Christy's common sense thread about asking questions you don't want the answer too. 
Especially if I have PMS. 
I hate when people jump to the assumption that it's race based. Disability payments are determined by the extent of your injuries. Did Ms. Johnson suffer the EXACT same injuries as Lynch? :shrug: I'm not a big Lynch fan, but when racism is assumed as a basis for unfairness instead of the facts of how something like this is determined, it ####es me off. 
of course I know it was a joke. I just couldn't help but think of Christy's post when I read that.
