Just a little bit more

Photo By Staff Sgt. Zachary Mott | An Iraqi man with his disabled child talks to Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldiers about his daughter's handicap. Various charities and non-government organizations operate in Iraq to provide special needs to Iraqi children. These agencies are registered with the U.S. State Department or government of Iraq and can be called in to assist.  

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

03.04.2008

Story by Lt. Col. Michael Humphreys 

3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

By Maj. Mike Humphreys
3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs

BAGHDAD – Just a little bit more ... She is a darling little girl content to see the bustle of the Baghdad street from the comfortable arms of her father. Her dark, curly locks are a brilliant cap for her round face. Her ebony eyes focus on an indiscernible object on the street, a passing car, a running child, or smoke billowing from a street vendor's grill, only she knows. She doesn't understand the strange men in strange cloths her father is speaking to, nor does she recognize the desperation in her father's voice as he shows the U.S. Army Soldiers her little legs useless and braced by a plastic and metal contraption as alien to her body as the ground to her feet.

The precious 3-year-old cannot stand or walk on her own because of some debilitating disease that can't be treated by her country's doctors, either because of inexperience or lack of resources. It's been two days since I saw that child, but just now, with a moment to think, the image of her haunts my memory.

There were so many distractions when I first met the desperate father and his delicate progeny. It was in an outdoor room open to the street and covered by a tarpaulin tent heated by the noon sun. There, cologned Iraqi men played cards, dice games, and other trivial pursuits. They talked at each other at the top of their voices to get over the Friday prayers that billowed from the Abu Hanifa Mosque next door, and the television mounted to the wall broadcasting prayers from elsewhere in the city. The air was hot and stagnant and reeked of perfumes, cigarette smoke, roasted chicken and waste water running through the street behind.

I just needed some Iraqis to speak on camera about the day's unity prayer in the mosque where the Shia Imam from the neighboring District of Kadhamiya, in northern Baghdad, came to Friday prayers with his Sunni brothers across the Tigris in Adhamiya. I was focusing on terms like reconciliation, stability, security, and economic growth. As a U.S. Army public affairs officer, I was there to record the Iraqis' story on this historic day in an attempt to help them tell it in their own words. It's part of our mission to help change the dynamics of the situation, to emphasize the positive actions of Iraqis and coalition forces, and I had dispatched our best military journalist and our interpreter with me that day to help me do the same.

As I looked around for opportunities, my view intersected the glance of an elderly man around 40 with a young child in his lap. He motioned to her feet in socks. I thought, simply another Iraqi looking for a hand out.

"I'm sorry," I shrugged, knowing the man probably didn't understand me. "I don't have any children's shoes."

He was a tempered but beaten man. I turned away unwilling to absorb any of his desperate looks.

A few moments later I saw him standing and speaking with another soldier, the child still in his arms seemingly as unaware as I of her handicap, intrusting in the omnipotent arms of her dear father.

"What did he want," I asked the soldier.

"His kid can't walk," he said, "He's been to Iraqi doctors, but they can't do anything for her."

With the truth revealed, I briefly looked for the man again, but he was gone.

I paused only for a moment to think until the mosque service was released, and our mission was back on. People were pouring out of the mosque. The streets were crowded with worshipers leaving their Friday ritual on their way to their homes or lunch with friends and neighbors. There were images to capture and interviews to do. We had to record the importance of this day.

Since that day, just about 60 hours ago, I've bounced around the battlefield by ground and lurched about by air. I've been in planning meetings and operational meetings, developed reports and slide shows, and pounded away with the never ending, morose, unfeeling and analytical fight to win this war. Then tonight I stopped. For a brief moment my mind was clear and unencumbered; it immediately reset to the very last moment of human feeling, a crippled little girl and the desperate pleadings of her father, and I was overcome.
How callus and uncaring am I that I have become so focused on mission I've forgotten what our mission is. This Iraqi man didn't want shoes for his daughter. He wanted his baby girl to walk. He wanted her to have at least her fair chance of a normal life. In a land already plagued by war, violence, corruption and need, this child is unfairly disadvantaged above all measure. When I had a chance to help, I turned away.

Maybe there is nothing I could have done directly. Maybe there is nothing the Army could do. But there are charities and non-government organizations in this country here to help. It is doubtful this man knew that, or where he could go. A few brief moments with him and I could have been a life-line out of his living nightmare and a bridge to a better life for a baby girl.

Just this little bit more I could have done ... This little battle we could have won.

• Date Taken: 03.04.2008
• Date Posted: 03.04.2008 09:58
• Story ID: 16973
• Location: BAGHDAD, IQ