Utah soldiers help Afghan girl

A young Afghan girl literally has a much better outlook on the world today thanks to a group of coalition forces that include West Jordan National Guard aviators.

The aviators helped arrange delicate eye surgery at an Egyptian hospital for a girl named Halima, whose blurry vision would have been permanent otherwise.

The surgery also helped focus a growing sense of collaboration among Afghan villagers, Egyptian coalition forces, Russian-Kyrgestani workers and AH-64 Apache pilots from the Utah National Guard's 211th Attack Aviation Battalion, said Maj. Lorraine Januzelli of the Utah National Guard.

The 211th deployed to Bagram Airbase in north-central Afghanistan in April. The Utah soldiers put a plan together to bring badly needed humanitarian aid to the region. They also adopted a nearby village, Jegdalek, where a girls school is under construction.

Family members back in Utah collected items for the schoolchildren, including shoes, books, toys and winter clothing. By August enough materials had been collected to make an air delivery to Jegdalek. On Aug. 28, two CH-47 Chinook helicopters loaded with seven pallets of goods landed there.

During the trip, Chief Warrant Officer Layne Pace and 1st Lt. Jon Richardson, both Utah Apache pilots, noticed a little girl with some peculiar eye problems. When she looked at them, she was unable to focus with both eyes. Alternately, one eye or the other would turn away to the side. The pair believed they could help her, Januzelli said.

Halima was born with strabismus, a muscular disorder that truncates depth perception and prevents accurate focusing. If left untreated, blurred sight will be permanent.

Upon returning to Bagram, Pace and Richardson took steps to arrange for surgical treatment for Halima, starting with the surgeons at the U.S. hospital on base. "We were told they could do the surgery, but she needed to be taken through the Egyptian hospital system," Pace said. The Egyptian hospital is located on the Bagram Airbase.

The Egyptian hospital commander said his staff would do the surgery, with an Egyptian surgeon taking the lead in the operation, assisted by an American surgeon.

The surgeons operated on Halima on Sept. 8, cutting a number of ocular muscles in order to restore normal vision. Pace and a few others were allowed to observe the two-hour procedure. "They did not bandage her eyes. Her father woke her up when we arrived, and she sat straight up with her eyes shut," Pace said.