Local Marine backs account of freeing POW

[thedrifter]

Local Marine backs account of freeing POW
Matthew Daneman
Democrat and Chronicle

(May 28, 2003) ? GATES ? On Tuesday, one local member of the U.S. military team that rescued prisoner of war Pvt. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital echoed Pentagon assertions that any allegations that the rescue was staged are false.

?I just think that (allegation) is kind of funny,? Nick Stefanovic said. ?I happen to know it wasn?t staged, obviously.?

He declined further comment, saying he is not in a position to comment further on the military operation.

A BBC broadcast on May 18 challenged some aspects of the Pentagon version of the Lynch rescue, saying she was not wounded and that her rescuers did not face enemy fire.

Stefanovic, 21, graduated from Gates Chili High School in 2000. He came back a war veteran, having spent the last six months in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq as a lance corporal in the Marine Corps.

Tuesday, a laconic Stefanovic sat through several class periods in Carla Collichio?s room, fielding questions from students not much younger than himself about his military and combat experience.

?We watched the war every day on CNN and we read the papers,? Collichio told one class. ?Now let?s hear the real deal from a primary source.?

With his spiked hair and Tommy Jeans hoodie, Stefanovic could have passed as a student in Collichio?s history class. Then the morning announcements at Gates Chili High blew his cover.

?Today is Nick Stefanovic Day,? a voice announced over the school?s PA system while Stefanovic turned a bright red. ?If you see Nick, welcome him and thank him for his service to our country.?

His couple of weeks of leave, spent in Monroe County, end at the end of the week. Then he returns to North Carolina?s Camp Lejeune, and then further Marine training in Florida.

Stefanovic said he spent roughly three months in Afghanistan, patrolling the Pakistani border, followed by roughly six weeks in Kuwait awaiting war in Iraq and about another six weeks as part of a search-and-rescue team made up of troops from the four main military branches.

He was part of the team that rescued Lynch, a wounded prisoner of war, from a hospital near the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

That operation has been the source of worldwide controversy, as the BBC reported that the rescue was apparently faked by the American military -- that she had no gunshot injuries and that U.S. troops entered the hospital firing blanks to simulate a rescue under enemy fire.

The Pentagon has steadfastly denied that.

Stefanovic said his military experiences have aged him.

He said he no longer gets into frequent fistfights like he once did. And he?s trying to shake his habit, picked up in those Middle East hotspots, of being constantly jumpy and on guard for the next possible attack.

?I?m trying to get back to this world now,? he said. ?I?m trying to walk around and not watch my back.?

E-mail address: mdaneman@DemocratandChronicle.com

Sempers,

Roger