The Road to Safwan: The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry in the 1991 ...

five and eight years old, approached a squadron position. Both
children were burnt over seventy percent of their bodies and, as
the soldier who rendered this report noted: “if there was a
(burn) worse than 3rd degree, these kids had it,” and the injuries
were obviously not fresh. Through their interpreter, the
Americans learned that the children had been burnt when a
cooking stove exploded six days earlier. Both were extremely
dehydrated and the wounds themselves were so old and untreated
that insect larva infected the sores and blisters. The girl
had the worse injuries and, as is American practice, the medics
began working on her first, cleaning the wounds and administering
liquid though intravenous feeding. The child’s father
protested and wanted the medics to work on the less-injured
boy first, as though his life were more valuable. The soldiers
were incensed and when it came time to evacuate the children,
they allowed the mother to accompany them, but not the father.
Years later the soldier who spoke about this incident was still
angry at the father for waiting so long to help his children and
then insisting that the less-injured lad was more important than
his seriously injured daughter. 20
In some cases, the medics arranged for the evacuation of
badly injured children. When possible, they also sent along one
of the parents to keep the child from getting lost somewhere to
the rear. Sometimes, especially in the early days of the occupation,
sending parents along was not possible. Almost immediately,
front-line soldiers began to run into problems with locating
the children they had dispatched to the rear. These kids
were quickly lost in the medical system. Two or three days later
the parents would return asking for their children and the soldiers
were almost helpless. There was no tracking system at
that time for these children. Each day Iraqi parents visited the
checkpoint with a note given them by the 2nd Cavalry before
they departed. The notes usually read:
On this date, we medically evacuated Ismail, the son of
Mohammed. The child needed to be operated on for
feet and leg injuries.
Signed;
Sgt Jones.
Postwar Operations 223