WEBVTT

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sergeant . First class Michael son in

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private . First class Justin Donnelly

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and Captain keith Thompson all cared

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for baby nor and helped organize her

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trip to Atlanta . Good morning to you

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all , sergeant . Let me start with you .

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If I understand this correctly , You're

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in a house to house search . You're

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looking for insurgents . You come into

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the house where baby Nouri's and what

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do you see ? Well sir , uh , we

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normally conduct a question of survey

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of how electricity , water and medical

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issues are there at the house and they

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presented the baby to us . And then we

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had PFC Donnelly do the initial

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assessment on the child . Okay . Ask

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ask . Uh private Donnelly when he saw

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this little girl . What were his first

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thoughts stand by . They want to know

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what you thought when I first saw the

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child ? Uh well sir , when I first saw

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the child , um , I really , a lot of

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thoughts went through my head . At

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first I saw the tumor and thought

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maybe some kind of cancer that she was

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born with . So I took a picture of it

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and I really just brought it back and

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showed it to my training command . See

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if we could do anything for this little

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girl who was born of this unfortunate

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condition ? Uh Sergeant , you're you're

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in a battle zone . You're in a life and

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death situation on a day by day basis .

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How was it that you and the private and

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the rest of the guys in your unit

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decided you know what maybe we need to

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reach out and try and save this little

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girl's life . Oh , so it's very simple .

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It's a child . What is more important

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than a child and this is how we're

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gonna win the war on terrorism . One

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child at a time . One family at a time

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in one community of time . And this is

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what America does best . We help people .

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This is what we do . Um Sergeant , was

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it clear to you that the family wanted

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your help ? Were they looking for you

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too to try and help dig them out of

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this situation in some way ? Yes , sir .

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Absolutely . And that's why the child

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was presented to us . They were hoping

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anything that could be done we could do

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and which we're doing at this time .

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Mhm . All right . Let's get captain .

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Keep counting on here captain . Your

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guys bring this baby in . What was your

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first response when you saw this child ?

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Well , my first impression was , you

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know , she was very alert and very

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bright and very happy despite her

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obvious spinal cord deformity . So I

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was quite impressed that she was doing

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so well . You still have a lot of

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hurdles to get over in order to get

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that baby from Baghdad all the way to

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the United States for medical care . Uh

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That's right . And that's exactly why I

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was written on this case as being a

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pediatrician as well as the general

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medical officer . Uh It was upon me to

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determine whether or not she was

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medically fit to fly back to the United

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States . Uh Alright , well , it's clear

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that she's in Atlanta now and the folks

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there are pretty optimistic about her

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future . You all deserve . Uh Listen ,

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you've got her hats off to you already

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for being where you are in the first

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place , but there's a little extra

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place in everybody's hearts that

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they're looking at what you all have

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accomplished with this little girl .

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Thank you so much for taking the time

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to speak with us and thank you . Have a

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good morning . Yeah .