Suffer the Children

Kandahar, Afghanistan

Eastern Orthodox Chapel in the Romanian Camp

I did not expect to see 3 children in the ICU this morning when I arrived.  I soon learned there had been four.  One had passed away shortly after arriving.  He had likely been caught in the crossfire somewhere out there beyond "the wire."  I am not even sure where he came from.

There is an alarming number of children who are wounded or killed whom we see, and countless others whom we don't.  This isn't news.  Children have been the innocent bystanders in this country for decades, since the Soviet invasion.  The emphasis here is on innocent.

The other three children, all young boys, were hurt or maimed while goat herding.  An IED went off, same old story.  Of course it could have been a mine from the Soviet times too, who knows?  It doesn't matter to the young boy who now only has one intact limb, and if lucky, one eye.  We do our best with these young patients, but sometimes our best isn't good enough.

The 'wire' is out there somewhere, but this isn't it


I had just finished reading the magnificent book Three Cups of Tea last night, which is the true story of Greg Mortensen and his efforts to build schools for children in Pakistan and Afghanistan.   The subtitle of his book is One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time.  Mortensen and his co-author told the painful truth of how much the children in this region have suffered, from the Soviet times, the Taliban scourge, and now the post-9/11 reality.  This was heavy on my mind when I walked in this morning.

The base's mosque, which I am sure, pre-dates our arrival

When I sat down to tell the young amputee's father that his son's life was forever altered - as if that weren't already obvious - the bearded, weathered-faced man told me that as long as he and his wife lived, they would care for the boy.  He thanked us profusely for our assistance.  I had learned earlier he was the one who carried his near-dead son's body to one of the FOBs in southern Afghanistan.  He was happy now that his son's broken body was at least alive.