Team Holloman member helps bring smile to Iraqi family

  • Published
  • By U.S. Army Sgt. Carl N. Hudson
  • Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - Arabian Peninsula Public Affairs
BALAD, Iraq --  Surrounded by the white, sterile halls of Joint Base Balad Air Force Theatre Hospital, an Iraqi girl sat smiling as she scribbled with all the precision of a 2-year-old in her dinosaur coloring book. Ignoring the lines that formed a friendly and content stegosaurus, she drops the green marker and begins coloring with the red one as her father sat and watched, gracious that she's able to smile.

Zaenab, 2, along with her father, Juma Falih Husayn, have every reason to smile in recent days. Coalition doctors performed a cleft lip and palate reconstruction on Zaenab in Balad, Iraq, April 29.

When a Coalition civil affairs team performed a clinical assessment of Zaenab's village in January, Husayn remembered when he, along with his village, first approached the team about his daughter's cleft lip and palate.

"Coalition forces were in the area giving donations and helping the poor," he said. "I showed them my daughter."

Army Staff Sgt. Brandon Scott, a civil affairs medic, found Zaenab's village somewhat unusual when he was first approached during the clinical assessment.

"The first thing I noticed about this little girl was that the entire village had a general concern for [Zaenab], which is uncommon because in most cases, they get ostracized and pushed to the side," he said.

Moved by the village's concern, Scott's unit began researching ways they could help.

"[After] I saw her in January, I came up here and talked to the Ears, Nose and Throat doctor about the procedure," he said.

After some discussion and many emails, Air Force Lt. Col. Douglas Gottschalk, the otolaryngologist of Air Force Theatre Hospital agreed to perform the procedure.

"A lot of kids with deformities get shunned, and that affects them for the rest of their life," he said. "A one day surgery [we performed], that's going to affect her for the rest of her life. That's a major thing."

Husayn, who was told that the Coalition was going to help his daughter, was excited when he heard the news that the procedure was going to take place.

"When she was very young, we had to put drops of milk very carefully in her mouth to drink," he recalled. "I didn't believe it [when I was told]."

Husayn was not the only one excited.

"We live for helping people," said Air Force Capt. Lee Brock, a pediatrician from the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group deployed from Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. "In terms of cleft palate, this situation was not anything unusual. What was unusual was the fact that we got to participate in helping her and we got to change her life in a lot of ways."

After the procedure was performed, the humble father spoke softly as he watched his daughter play a game of catch with a nurse.

"I'm very happy and grateful," he said.

"I'm so glad I had the privilege of being able to take part in her care and increase her quality of life, and hopefully, her self-esteem as she gets older," Gottschalk said.

As Zaenab curled her face into her father's neck, she smiled shyly and watched the crowd of doctors who watched over her.

"We can make a difference one patient at a time," said Brock.