Pretty emotional piece...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072700007.html'Izzy? . . . Bring Your Daughter Here'
U.S. Officer, Wanting to Save Interpreter's Wounded Child, Faces a Snag
By David Finkel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 27, 2007; Page A15
BAGHDAD, July 26 -- An hour after a car bomb exploded in downtown Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 25 people, wounding at least 110 and destroying an apartment building, a phone call begging for help came to an Army officer in eastern Baghdad. It was from a man named Izzy who works as an interpreter for the U.S. military and whose calm voice was now filled with panic.
...
"The only hope you have is to get her to an American hospital?" said Maj. Brent Cummings, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, for which Izzy is an interpreter. He was repeating what Izzy had just said. Izzy started to answer. The cellphone went dead. "Izzy?" Cummings said. "Izzy?"
How do moments of decency occur in a place such as Baghdad, in a war such as this war? Perhaps by what several officers on an Army base in eastern Baghdad decided to do next.
...
Could an American citizen living in Baghdad, who was injured by a non-American bomb, receive medical care in an American military medical facility?
...
But in this part of Baghdad, the sounds were of a mother who no longer had a home kissing her Iraqi daughter's cheek, and a father who no longer had a home kissing his Iraqi daughter's hand, and a little girl who no longer had a home saying something in Arabic that caused her parents to smile, and Cummings saying quietly in English, "Man, I haven't felt this good since I got to this hellhole."
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