Conley
04-20-2012, 09:07 AM
The Afghan girl turned up one winter night at the Marine base with fist-sized bruises beginning to blossom across her body. Her name was Malika, and she looked about 16 years old, 17 at the most.
More worrisome to military medical staff than the abrasions on her battered shoulders was the vomiting. Malika had ingested rat poison or insecticide, apparently in despair over her situation.
Her brothers had accused her of having a romantic relationship with a boy she had hoped to marry. In southern Afghanistan, a deeply conservative and devout area of the country that spawned the militant Islamist Taliban movement, that amounted to a death sentence.
“Don’t let them kill me,” she pleaded. “If you send me back to Marjah, I’ll be dead.”
The Marines did not let her brothers kill her, or let her kill herself. What’s more, long after the Camp Pendleton command staff returned to San Diego County, they discovered this spring that she had done more than just survive. She had thrived.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/apr/19/amid-war-marines-give-girl-new-hope/
Just one story of a life being saved in an unconventional way.
More worrisome to military medical staff than the abrasions on her battered shoulders was the vomiting. Malika had ingested rat poison or insecticide, apparently in despair over her situation.
Her brothers had accused her of having a romantic relationship with a boy she had hoped to marry. In southern Afghanistan, a deeply conservative and devout area of the country that spawned the militant Islamist Taliban movement, that amounted to a death sentence.
“Don’t let them kill me,” she pleaded. “If you send me back to Marjah, I’ll be dead.”
The Marines did not let her brothers kill her, or let her kill herself. What’s more, long after the Camp Pendleton command staff returned to San Diego County, they discovered this spring that she had done more than just survive. She had thrived.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/apr/19/amid-war-marines-give-girl-new-hope/
Just one story of a life being saved in an unconventional way.