interesting story from Afghanistan jan 09 2009
When my unit visited a police checkpoint we came across some kids in the area. They were friendly and of course didn't know english so we tried to communicate. the good thing is candy and goodies usually makes up for any language difficulty. But another kid an older one came by, probably the older brother. My driver noticed his hand looked broken so we called in our medic and in interpretor to check it out. We found out they speak Pastoon instead of Dari woops. But anyways, the kid 5 years ago has a snake bite and it wasn't treated. The kid's body on one half was crippled by the poison. There was nothing our medic could do but it really saddenned me to see this about 14 year crippled so young in his life, because there was no medical care in his area. Our medic gave the kid some ibouprofin for the pain. Seeing something like that really makes you appreciate the medicine and doctors we have access to in the states. At least the kid knows what the problem is and maybe can do what he can do to help himself.