Lynch (14 June 1923 – 10 August 2008) was an American soldier and CIA paramilitary officer in Special Activities Division.
Paramilitary Operations Officers come from the Special Operations Group (SOG) within SAD.
They are recruited primarily from USSOCOM.
They are a majority of the recipients of the rare CIA valor awards of the Distinguished Intelligence Cross and the Intelligence Star.
He was one of the two CIA officers who commanded the faction of the army that went to war in the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
The other agent was William "Rip" Robertson.
Lynch was born in Victoria, Texas and was the son of an oil driller.
He was wounded at Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and Heartbreak Ridge in Korea; served with the Special Forces in Laos; and received three Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars and one Bronze Star with a "V" for valor, among other awards.
He was selected from the elite to become a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the CIA's famed Special Activities Division (renamed Special Activities Center in 2016 ) in 1960.
For his extraordinary heroism at the Bay of Pigs, Lynch was awarded the Intelligence Star, the CIA's most coveted award.
In the six years after the Bay of Pigs invasion, he ran commando raids into Cuba.