Some missions are unlike anything you see on TV.
In 2004, I was one of a dozen well-armed American soldiers who drove into Reegee village in western Afghanistan to find an 11-year-old Afghan girl who needed corrective surgery for her cleft lip. She was one of the bravest people I ever knew.
And I owe her everything.
A different squad had first spotted her, and our physician’s assistant had spoken to an Army surgeon on our main airbase at Bagram. He could conduct the surgery if the girl could get there.
I manned the machine gun turret atop our Humvee and saw her almost immediately, her split upper lip and twisted teeth unmistakable. What must she have thought when our convoy stopped and so many soldiers approached her?
If she was afraid, she didn’t show it. She covered her mouth but did not run away. Her name was Zulaikha, and we made arrangements with her family for their consent to the procedure and her travel to Bagram.
The Army couldn’t send Zulaikha air transportation, so we chipped in our own money to pay for a civilian taxi north across the desert to Herat and an Afghan plane to Bagram. I was on early morning guard duty when Zulaikha and her older brother arrived at our base before their trip. I drove out to pick them up and bring them inside. We offered what little snack food we had and tried to talk to them through our translator Khalid, but they ate little and spoke even less.
Around sunrise, my tower guards called over the radio. The taxi had arrived. I drove Khalid, Zulaikha, and her brother out to their ride. Almost immediately something changed. The brother began arguing with Khalid.
“Khalid, what’s he saying?”
“He worries there is not enough money to pay for the trip,” Khalid said.
“OK. Translate my words exactly.” I looked at the brother. “Have some faith in our shared God. This will work. My people have taken care of everything. We are everywhere.”
As he heard the first part of the translation, the brother relaxed considerably. We shook hands. Then, by an amazing coincidence, I call providence, we discovered the taxi driver was one of Zulaikha’s cousins. I offered a prayer of thanks. Zulaikha and her brother rode away.
Later, the Army surgeon sent word of success. Zulaikha’s brother flashed a thumbs-up. He and Zulaikha had gone home happy. A week later, they returned to our base.
The change in Zulaikha was astounding. I didn’t understand doctors were capable of so completely fixing cleft lip. Only a tiny scar showed she had ever been different.
One of the happiest moments of my life was seeing Zulaikha smile. Just truly, normally, joyfully smile.
Foreign soldiers, armed to the teeth, came looking for her, but Zulaikha faced it all with a wonderful quiet courage and dignity. To me, she became a symbol of all the good people of Afghanistan, especially the women and girls, working so hard against difficult challenges to build better lives and a better country.
“I promise I will tell people your story,” I said as she rode away.
I never saw Zulaikha again, nor have Afghan friends succeeded in finding her. But, in 2011, I kept my promise, publishing my first novel Words in the Dust, about an Afghan girl, also named Zulaikha, who embraces her own culture as American soldiers offer to repair her cleft lip. The book was well-received and has opened a career for me.
I’d always wanted to be a writer. And although my time in Afghanistan was difficult, and once seemed a setback to that goal, my dream came true thanks to a brave, young, Afghan girl named Zulaikha. I will never forget her.
