"It's great to be home," she told a cheering crowd from her wheelchair after being flown into her hometown in the West Virginia hills by military helicopter from Walter Reed Army Medical Center near Washington.

"I want to express my thanks to all those who hoped and prayed for my return," Lynch, 20, said as family members sat at her side.

After more than three months of treatment at Walter Reed, Lynch looked pale and exhausted. Her voice was weak. She appeared to strain to smile.

"For a long time I had no idea so many people knew I was missing," she said. "There were thousands of letters, many of them from children, to offer messages of hope and faith...I am very thankful.

"I'm also grateful to several Iraqi citizens who helped save my life while I was in their hospital, and the Special Forces soldiers who saved my life," said Lynch, whose rescue resulted from intelligence slipped to US forces by Iraqi sources.

"I'm proud to be an American soldier in the army," she said. "I'm proud to have served in the 507th (Maintenance Company)...I'm an American soldier still. Thank you for this welcome."

Lynch's brief appearance was followed by a military motorcade through the small town, ending at her family home in the nearby town of Palestine. Residents jammed the streets and waved flags as Lynch, flanked by her brother, Army Specialist Greg Lynch Jr., passed.

"We prayed day in and day out...after we learned she was missing. ... I view her as a role model for myself," Greg Lynch said.

Lynch, who has said she joined the army for the educational benefits attached to service, was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Prisoner of War medals Monday.

She has said she intends to enroll in college and one day be an elementary school teacher.

West Virginia Governor Bob Wise, introducing Lynch, said, "Our entire state of West Virginia has worn a yellow ribbon around our hearts."

Lynch, captured in a March 23 ambush of her unit's convoy in which 11 of her comrades were killed, was rescued April 1 in a daring nighttime raid on the hospital in Nasiriyah where she was being held.

She was spirited out of Iraq to a US Army hospital in Germany before being transferred to Walter Reed.

Doctors there say she still has no clear recollection of her capture or its prelude, and has diminished function in her lower extremities from her injuries, which included multiple broken bones and wounds.

"Jessica remembers nothing between the ambush and waking up in the Iraqi hospital," Greg Argyros, one of her doctors at Walter Reed, told NBC news. "She remembers the day she was rescued, but the days before that, she has no memory."

Original reports of the ambush suggested that Lynch was shot several times as she fiercely fought Iraqi soldiers. But an official report subsequently revealed Lynch was injured when the speeding Humvee she was traveling in crashed into the back of a five-tonne Army truck as they tried to escape the ambush.

Argyros said Lynch, who sustained fractures all over her body in the crash, was still unable to walk unassisted, but said he was hopeful she would regain full use of her legs.

"She uses the wheelchair for long distances and uses her walker for shorter distances, primarily getting around the house," he said. "The progress that she's made over the last three months leads us to believe she will continue to make a full recovery."

WAR.WIRE