IRAQ: With a heart, home again

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The Iraqi toddler brought to the United States for lifesaving heart surgery through the efforts of Marines has been reunited with her family in Haditha.

The girl’s father and several other relatives were at Baghdad International Airport on March 7 to welcome 2-year-old Amenah and her mother back home, according to a military statement. The family then flew to Al Asad Airbase in Anbar province, where they boarded an MV-22 Osprey to Haditha.

Later that day, Marines attended a celebratory dinner at the girl’s house.

‘I am very happy. I was very worried that my daughter would not come home alive,’ Amenah’s father, Ala Thabit Fattah, was quoted as saying. ‘I am very grateful for the great treatment the American people gave to my family.’

Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Regiment, met Amenah on patrol in the city. Concerned that her fingers and toes turned blue whenever she exerted herself, they arranged for the battalion surgeon to examine her. He recognized the signs of a congenital heart defect, which could not be treated in Iraq.

Maj. Kevin Jarrard, Company L’s commanding officer, coordinated the massive effort to send the girl and her mother to the United States. His wife, Kelly, raised nearly $30,000 to cover the travel costs, most of it from their hometown in Gainesville, Ga.

Pediatric specialists at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville donated their services. On Feb. 11, they redirected blood from Amenah’s heart to her lungs to supply the toddler with better oxygen to the rest of her body. The three-hour operation was successful, and Amenah spent the next few weeks recovering in the United States.

Such efforts are helping to mend relations in the Euphrates River town, where Marines killed 24 civilians after their convoy hit a roadside bomb in 2005.

‘I consider all the Marines in Haditha father to Amenah,” Fattah was quoted as saying. “And I will do anything as a return favor for the generosity of the Marines helping my family.”

— Alexandra Zavis in Baghdad