invisible forces, equally strong. When Dr. Peter broke through hers and made it clear that while everything had gone very well, there were still all the other corrective procedures left to do, surgeries and recoveries over and over for many months yet to come—she felt like somebody pushed her off a cliff.
* * *
By the time that the second set of operations were completed, the first alarms were beginning to be raised by the charitable NGO regarding public knowledge about Zubaida’s case. Like Dr. Smith, they not only feared being swamped with desperate people and having their own system clogged by too many numbers, they worried over what sort of acceptable answer they could give irate applicants who might demand to know, “why so much for one girl?”
On June 22nd, Colonel Joe R. Schroeder at Army Central Command in Florida wrote to Colonel Robert Frame in Kabul trying to answer the question as well. He told him, “This has been a wonderful collaboration of many people from widely varied backgrounds, pulling together toward a common goal. The girl’s plight was so compelling that it seemed to enlist all who saw her pictures.” Schroeder also wrote to Peter Grossman: “ Some I have been told are critical that so much effort was expended on one little girl when there are so many other needy people. There are always critics and there are always people in great need. I am just thankful that we collectively did not turn a blind eye to one so hopeless and that we collectively could do something.”
Robert Frame knew what Schroeder was talking about, but he also realized that as true as the words were, they weren’t going to be enough to silence the kind of people who get high on righteous outrage. He wrote to Peter and Rebecca Grossman, who had also heard the question, “why so much for one child?” Like everybody else, they couldn’t deny that it was a natural concern and that some people—maybe a lot of people—were likely to find cause to object over Zubaida’s case.
They already knew that the only true answers anybody could give to the question “why Zubaida?” were: (a) because she happened to be there; (b) because the right other people also happened to be there; and (c) because, most of all, when it is not possible to save all of them, you do the next best thing and save them one at a time.
And somebody will either understand that or they won’t.
* * *
In spite of the experience that Mike Smith had already accumulated as a military physician living in Afghanistan, he still found that when he accompanied Mohammed Hasan on the long flight from Los Angeles back to that struggling country, the very act of walking off the plane at the end filled him with the sensation of stepping off a deep drop down into a powerfully different world.
The stepping off point from Planet West to Planet East began at the long final layover in Dubai, in the United Arab Republics. There the gaudy metropolis recently constructed over the historic city mixes with some of the most strange and ancient elements of Middle Eastern culture, swirling them among countless concrete and plaster constructs of the multi-billion dollar international establishment. There wasn’t much to appreciate here at the intersection of two vastly different cultures, since the sheer power of major oil money had already overwhelmed the core elements of the region. The resulting ambiance always stuck him as Las Vegas without the boobs.
The journey was completed and the door slammed behind them at the instant that they stepped off the plane in Kabul. There, the effects of fifteen years of internal chaos across the country were evident everywhere he looked. The airport was jammed to overflowing and ringing with the din of hundreds of shouting voices while huge crowds pushed and shoved for every square foot in the place. Guards repeatedly waded into squabbling knots of people just to get them to form into ragged lines.
The presence of all things American
* * *
By the time that the second set of operations were completed, the first alarms were beginning to be raised by the charitable NGO regarding public knowledge about Zubaida’s case. Like Dr. Smith, they not only feared being swamped with desperate people and having their own system clogged by too many numbers, they worried over what sort of acceptable answer they could give irate applicants who might demand to know, “why so much for one girl?”
On June 22nd, Colonel Joe R. Schroeder at Army Central Command in Florida wrote to Colonel Robert Frame in Kabul trying to answer the question as well. He told him, “This has been a wonderful collaboration of many people from widely varied backgrounds, pulling together toward a common goal. The girl’s plight was so compelling that it seemed to enlist all who saw her pictures.” Schroeder also wrote to Peter Grossman: “ Some I have been told are critical that so much effort was expended on one little girl when there are so many other needy people. There are always critics and there are always people in great need. I am just thankful that we collectively did not turn a blind eye to one so hopeless and that we collectively could do something.”
Robert Frame knew what Schroeder was talking about, but he also realized that as true as the words were, they weren’t going to be enough to silence the kind of people who get high on righteous outrage. He wrote to Peter and Rebecca Grossman, who had also heard the question, “why so much for one child?” Like everybody else, they couldn’t deny that it was a natural concern and that some people—maybe a lot of people—were likely to find cause to object over Zubaida’s case.
They already knew that the only true answers anybody could give to the question “why Zubaida?” were: (a) because she happened to be there; (b) because the right other people also happened to be there; and (c) because, most of all, when it is not possible to save all of them, you do the next best thing and save them one at a time.
And somebody will either understand that or they won’t.
* * *
In spite of the experience that Mike Smith had already accumulated as a military physician living in Afghanistan, he still found that when he accompanied Mohammed Hasan on the long flight from Los Angeles back to that struggling country, the very act of walking off the plane at the end filled him with the sensation of stepping off a deep drop down into a powerfully different world.
The stepping off point from Planet West to Planet East began at the long final layover in Dubai, in the United Arab Republics. There the gaudy metropolis recently constructed over the historic city mixes with some of the most strange and ancient elements of Middle Eastern culture, swirling them among countless concrete and plaster constructs of the multi-billion dollar international establishment. There wasn’t much to appreciate here at the intersection of two vastly different cultures, since the sheer power of major oil money had already overwhelmed the core elements of the region. The resulting ambiance always stuck him as Las Vegas without the boobs.
The journey was completed and the door slammed behind them at the instant that they stepped off the plane in Kabul. There, the effects of fifteen years of internal chaos across the country were evident everywhere he looked. The airport was jammed to overflowing and ringing with the din of hundreds of shouting voices while huge crowds pushed and shoved for every square foot in the place. Guards repeatedly waded into squabbling knots of people just to get them to form into ragged lines.
The presence of all things American
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