Soldier Gets Iraqi Girl New Legs

[unhappycamper]

Soldier Gets Iraqi Girl New Legs
May 10, 2008
Knight Ridder

BAGHDAD - Staff Sgt. Luis Falcon, 38, was patrolling the streets of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, when he saw Shahad Abbas. The 11-year-old girl was in a large decrepit wheelchair, and the stumps of her legs where her calves should have been were crusted with dried blood.

Falcon couldn't just walk on, so he stopped to talk. He came back the next day and the day after that, then every day for six months, bringing her toys, gauze for her legs, a new wheelchair. Anything she asked for, he would bring.

In a war that Falcon no longer really understood, Shahad became his mission. So when she asked for legs, that became his mission, too.

On Friday his dream and hers came true, just three weeks before he's scheduled to leave Iraq. Shahad was fitted with prosthetic limbs in a U.S. military-funded clinic in Baghdad that normally provides artificial limbs for wounded members of the Iraqi security forces.

"We created a bond, and I didn't need a translator to interpret the bond we had," Falcon said.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/soldier-gets-iraqi-girl-new-legs.html

[dipsydoodle]

1. It's a shame

he's just one glimmer of light in all that darkeness.

[Deja Q]

2. Our media

tends to say all the nasty stuff because people are conditioned to seek it out first. Such nice news and other viewpoints are typically not mentioned; nor do I believe it's because of any baloney conspiracy theory. After all, people will slow down and.or cause traffic jams just to watch a cop give some twit a speeding ticket.

I think it's safe to say there's far more incidents of valor than just this one. They just don't get reported because it's not as fun as death or that prime time 8PM network program.

I've recommended this thread.

Everybody should.