9781422277140

Army soldiers in action during the 2003 Iraq War: More than 150,000 US service men and women served in the conflict.

Ken Heiney now had bad news to report. As the teens settled down, he told them, “a student from this community is listed as MIA.” Her name was Jessica Lynch. The room fell silent. MIA means Missing in Action. The Iraq War, which had started only four short days before, had descended on Wirt County in the most horrible of ways. No one knew whether Lynch, a private with the army’s 507th Mainte- nance Co., based at Fort Bliss, Texas, was alive or dead.

8 8