THE NOT-SO-HIDDEN AND IN FACT PERFECTLY OBVIOUS SUBTEXT: Is that Private Jessica Lynch is a woman. Virginia Postrel pointed this out:

Reporters on Fox News Channel and MSNBC are displaying an exceedingly annoying habit of referring to Pfc. Jessica Lynch as just "Jessica" in news stories, the better to tug the viewers' paternal/maternal heartstrings. But Jessica Lynch is not the little girl who fell down the well. She is a U.S. soldier serving in harm's way. If you're old enough to be a POW, you're old enough to be referred to as "Private Lynch." Even if you're female.

Meanwhile Steve Sailer, Man Without Permalinks, makes a different point from deep within his stronghold of Uncomfortable Realities Born of Millions of Years of Evolution:

Pretty 19-year-old girl soldier rescued from captivity by special forces operation -- The Israelis used women as combat soldiers in 1947, but took them off the front lines for the second half of the war in 1948. One problem they found was that the male soldiers would take excessive risks to protect them.

Which is a good point, though we don't know if it applies to this rescue or not--whether the special ops guys knew she was there or knew just that Americans were there. Atrios has more, including news about an unsuccessful first rescue attempt.