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U.S. Soldier in Iraq Helps 11 Year Old Girl Get New Legs
news.yahoo.com — Staff Sgt. Luis Falcon was patrolling the streets of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, when he saw Shahad Abbas. The 11-year-old girl was in a large decrepit wheelchair, and the stumps of her legs where her calves should have been were crusted with dried blood. In a war that Falcon no longer really understood, Shahad became his mission
MakiMaki- 128 diggs
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- baramunchies, on 05/11/2008, -0/+6Wouldn't she need new legs ever year or so? At 11 years you still grow very fast. Just wondering. Didn't mean to make a heartless comment.
- MikiMac, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1you are probably right.
- ManyAsOne, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Yes, she most likely would. One of my friends from college who lost his legs as a child to a riding mower accident gave a presentation on the prosthetics industry- one aspect that he covered was the need for children's limb prosthetics to be replaced regularly in order to accommodate growth.
- MikiMac, on 05/11/2008, -0/+6Heart warming story. much nicer to hear about, than the soldiers throwing puppies.
- Darrelc, on 05/12/2008, -0/+7But wait! Soldiers never do good! All they do is shoot innocent Iraqi's and throw puppies off of cliffs!.
Seriously, It's good to see something like this actually being dugg up, After all the crap you hear about american soliders.
GG Luis. - thelastcivilian, on 05/12/2008, -6/+1Written like purple prose; Feel-good story about the US in Iraq; She lost her legs due to Iraqi insurgents...
I don't doubt that it's at least somewhat accurate (the LA Times has photos: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008 ... ) but... a quick search on Google News comes up with stories that are EERILY similar in the way that they are written.
Yahoo News: "Staff Sgt. Luis Falcon , 38, was patrolling the streets of Baqouba , north of Baghdad , when he saw Shahad Abbas . The 11-year-old girl was in a large decrepit wheelchair, and the stumps of her legs where her calves should have been were crusted with dried blood."
LA Times: "For months, Staff Sgt. Luis Falcon patrolled the downtrodden neighborhoods of Baqubah, where Sunni Muslim extremists had tried to create an Islamic caliphate. One day, he came upon a young girl sitting in an old, oversize wheelchair, blood crusting on the stumps where her legs had been."
Conclusions have been drawn by this digger as to where these "reporters" found out about the story. You are free to draw your own. Goodnight, and good luck. - BaseballGuyCAA, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5For every atrocity story about a soldier committing some unthinkable act that gets run dry through the news, there are many more like this that just don't get the same attention, because outrage and violence bring in ratings. It's good to see a story like this get some attention.
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