Jessica Lynch Goes Home with Bronze Star

Former prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch waved goodbye July 22 to the medical staff that had treated her for more than three months as she boarded an Army Black Hawk helicopter at Walter Reed's Forest Glen annex.

Lynch, the first of the rescued prisoners of war from Operation Iraqi Freedom, was finally headed home to West Virginia. She arrived in Elizabeth, W.Va., Tuesday afternoon, spoke briefly to the media, and then was taken in a motorcade to her hometown of Palestine. Monday at Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. James B. Peake, the Army surgeon general, awarded Lynch the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Prisoner of War medal during a ceremony in the hospital.