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Home » Culture » Military History

Thursday, June 12, 2008

The gift of life

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U.S. military hospital cares for children wounded in war (caught in the crossfire)

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  • PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARY F. CALVERT/THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Ghani rocks his daughter Najia, 2, at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital at Bagram Air Force Base, where she is recovering from injuries she sustained when she swallowed a watch battery. Medical technician Airman 1st Class Bobbie Arrington of Roanoke, Va., writes in the girl's chart as Zalmai (right) waits to see another patient at the hospital's Task Force Med.
  • U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Pablo Cadena (below) of San Diego, who was injured by a rocket-propelled grenade attack when his convoy was attacked, has received the Purple Heart. Ramish (bottom) is able to return to his village days after a cleft-palate surgery.
  • PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARY F. CALVERT/THE WASHINGTON TIMES
  • Afghan Sharaf (above) reaches down to his granddaughter Latifa, 1, as she lay in bed for treatment of shrapnel injuries at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. Mohammed Salim (below) helps his son Mohammed, 7, after lung surgery.
  • Airman Arrington (above left) applies ice to Ramish's face a day after the boy had his cleft palate repaired. Mohammed Salim (above) tries to convince his son, also Mohammed, to drink some juice as the boy recovers from surgery to remove a benign tumor from his lung. Sgt. 1st Class Pablo Cadena (below) comforts his wounded friend who was gravely injured in the same rocket attack that hurt Sgt. Cadena. Bibi Hawa (bottom right) sleeps by her granddaughter Donata's bed at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital. Sharaf (bottom left), an ethnic Pashtun from a province north of Kabul, says the hospital's staff "have treated us like family."

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By Sara A. Carter THE WASHINGTON TIMES

BAGRAM, Afghanistan - The plastic breathing tube helped keep 1 1/2-year-old Latifa alive after a rocket-propelled grenade exploded near her home during heavy fighting between Taliban insurgents and U.S. forces.

During the battle several weeks ago, shrapnel tore through her skull and damaged her trachea. Complications from surgery followed, but Latifa is expected to survive.

"Thanks be to God," said her grandfather, Sharaf, an ethnic Pashtun from Kapisa province north of Kabul.

"She is blessed to be here. Everything here is more than what I can imagine doing for her at home - she is like a flower. I´m very poor, and we cannot afford to take her to Pakistan for help. The doctors and nurses here have treated us like family."

Sharaf, who like many Afghans uses one name, spoke through an impromptu translator, Dr. Walayat Shah, an Afghan physician working alongside U.S. military personnel at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital at Bagram Air Base.

Just then, Sharaf turned toward Latifa with a smile, put her tiny soft hands in the rough fold of his.

"We call her Queen Latifa," said Capt. Tiffanie Rampley, 36, a registered nurse from Spokane, Wash., who has been a primary care nurse for the little girl. "She´s beautiful."

Latifa is one of the lucky ones, said Air Force Maj. Phylis Jones, the nurse in charge of the hospital's intensive care ward.

"For each kid that we see that´s injured like this, there are maybe thousands more that don´t get the same care throughout the country," she said.

"And it´s not just the children, but U.S. soldiers, Afghan security forces and other villagers from around the country that are treated here," Maj. Jones said.

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Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC

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