If you took a cursory glance at our reconstruction efforts in Iraq you would probably be blinded by the vast sums being invested in the hobbled infrastructure. It is a necessary step, the global version of the “you break it, you buy it” philosophy. But the future of Iraq doesn’t rest on these repairs alone. In fact if you were to focus on the “big picture” you would surely miss the mud level diplomacy that is slowly binding the destiny of our two nations. A perfect example is the story of Hawdah, a brave Iraqi girl whose life briefly intersected our own time here in Baghdad.
Several months ago the insurgents ambushed a military patrol with a ferocious combination of IEDs and direct fire. The American soldiers responded with a hellish storm of lead that blunted, and then silenced the insurgent attack. Despite their initial advantage the fight was brutally one-sided, before the soldiers ears had even finished ringing the insurgents were gone, leaving only their ruined bodies. Although American casualties were negligible, the IEDs searing blast had two tiny victims, Hawdah and her younger sister.
By time the Iraqi paramedics arrived Hawdah was the sole survivor, but with her legs and hands charred black her prospects were bleak. Those prospects weren’t improved by her hospital care, and over the next two months Hawdah suffered through a nightmarish level of care that broke both her legs and allowed her legs to fuse into a mass of damaged tissue. Then, when the situation looked utterly bleak, Hawdah’s story reached the ears of the very soldiers the IED was aimed at. They intervened on Hawdah’s behalf and she was taken to an American hospital to be treated. Her recovery was arduous and painful, but her bright smile and infectious enthusiasm infused the entire ward with a corporeal joy. As she recovered her therapy involved riding around in an odd little tricycle that allowed her to strengthen her legs and zip up and down the hospitals hallways. During her stay at the hospital Hawdah became fast friends with nearly every person she came into contact with, and her deep gratitude and love for Americans brightened many days.
Our short time with Hawdah started when 1LT Irish and his team were assigned to provide security for her return home. When LT Irish arrived at the hospital Hawdah was in the process of personally thanking her doctors and nurses for their care. After some tearful farewells Hawdah was shuttled outside to her armored motorcade. But as LT Irish prepared to lift Hawdah into his uparmored HMMWV he realized there was a problem. Our HMMWVs look utterly titanic as they move down the road, so most people assume they have a surplus of passenger space. What people fail to realize is passenger comfort is not a military design criteria, and despite the ominous size of a HMMWV they are not a comfortable ride. The problem that faced LT Irish was how to fit a recovering patient into a vehicle that forced passengers to contort to its cramped quarters. He finally placed her in the only place that allowed Hawdah to stretch her legs – the transmission hump. The problem with that position was its location directly beneath the gunners hatch. Our gunships have armored turrets, but the gunners manning them still surf their way through missions carefully balancing on the long transmission humps that fill the majority of a HMMWVs interior. A position that Hawdah now occupied. The gunner could have been upset at this intrusion into his domain, but instead he waved to our precious cargo and continued to scan his sector. As the vehicles moved out he started a slow and graceful dance around Hawdah’s position, deftly rotating his turret but taking special care to avoid hurting her by bumping into her. It would have been an amazing feat on a smooth road, but it was utterly flabbergasting on the deeply rutted roads of Baghdad.
As the convoy approached Hawdah’s home the streets erupted with waving children and smiling adults, the kids providing a jubilant phalanx to the motorcade. As the vehicles parked a happy throng of neighbors gathered around the family to add their collective mirth to the reunion. LT Irish and his patrol spent the next few minutes at the nexus of the elated throng of well wishers. LT Irish is a artillery officer by trade, he was trained by the Army in using the biggest weapons in the Army’s vast arsenal. And yet here he was serving as a muddy American ambassador leaving an impression that would last far longer then our time here in Iraq. It seemed somehow fitting.
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