April 18, 2006

Tragedy in Afganistan

You may have heard the news story from last week about a rocket attack in eastern Afganistan that hit a school and killed and wounded several children. Link to news story {opens in new window}.

Anyway, my Uncle David (dad's youngest brother) is with the U.S. Army in Afganistan commanding a Forward Surgical Team. My Uncle James emailed him about the attack and the following was David's response...

Jim, the rocket that struck this little school - impacted about 1/4 mile from our location. Every injured child there - excluding the ones killed immediately - were carried to my medical team. Within 30 minutes - we had 29 children - all below the age of 12 - and the school master - at our front door.

It took us about 9 hours and 6 emergency surgeries - followed by MEDEVAC of 6 patients - to put things together. One of the little ones - with a massive brain injury - died after reaching our team. The others - a variety of injuries from minor to very severe - are doing o.k.

That rocket and others, were aimed at us. We're safe and doing good...

db


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