Copyright 2006 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
By FRANK MAIN
Chicago Sun Times
Terrorists’ rockets wounded two children in a tiny village outside Baghdad airport last May — and they bled to death because no one could get them to a hospital.
Other villagers suffered heart attacks and died for lack of medical attention. A doctor visited the village two days a week.
Chicago Police Officer Bob Garcia was there serving as a lieutenant colonel in an Army Reserve civil affairs unit.
“The village mayor pulled me aside and asked me to help. I said, ‘Sure, I’ll get you some kind of transportation from the village to the Baghdad hospitals,’ ” he said.
But it was only when Garcia returned home last July that he realized he could fulfill his promise. Ald. James Balcer (11th), who served in Vietnam with the Marines and received three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for valor, was trying to send a decommissioned Chicago Fire Department ambulance to Iraq. He approached Garcia for help.
Garcia was aware of the Denton Amendment, which allows the U.S. military to transport donated humanitarian cargo overseas. The ambulance — refurbished for about $8,000 by Ambulance Transportation Inc. — passed government inspections and was flown to Iraq last month.
Frank Russo, a vice president for the ambulance company and a former Marine, said 20 wheelchairs and other medical equipment also were shipped in the back of the ambulance.
About 300 people live in what the military dubs “Iraqi Family Village,” which suffers from rocket and mortar attacks that fall short of the adjacent Camp Victory where Garcia was stationed.
“The ambulance will be critical,” Garcia said. “The military provides security, but we really can’t provide them with ambulance service.”
Balcer hopes to present the ambulance to village leaders soon on a trip to Iraq with Garcia, Russo and a representative of Sen. Dick Durbin, whose office provided State Department contacts.
“If it can save an Iraqi’s life — or an American soldier’s — it’s worth it,” the alderman said.