US Air Force Surgeon Saves Girl

The United States Air Force reports that one of its neurosurgeons has done a major operation on an eight-month old Afghan girl, saving her life. The operation occurred near Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The doctor's name is Randall McCafferty.

The girl suffered from water on the brain, or arachnoid cyst. Without the operation the girl would not have survived, but now her chances are very good, and in fact she is expected to survive.

Symptoms of the malady are irritability, eye abnormalities, and excessive head growth, caused by the cyst. The first doctors to look at the girl were Egyptian, but the resources that they had in the field hospital were too limited to help her, so she was transferred to a more sophisticated facility.

The cyst was at the base of the girl's brain. She was lucky because the neurosurgeon had only recently been deployed to Afghanistan. McCafferty expressed happiness at the outcome of the operation, and he is pleased to be deployed to an area where his unique skills can help people who would otherwise face dire medical situations.

The operation was performed at Craig Joint Theater Hospital.

While it may seem like common sense to help the local population when fighting a war, historically speaking, armies have not always done so. However, when fighting an anti-insurgency war, helping the locals is not just morally correct in a humanitarian sense, but it is an integral part of the war fighting strategy.

Insurgents rely on the local population for help, for shelter, for intelligence, and for food. This has been their strategy through the ages, not just during recent conflicts. For example, revolutionaries in China, fighters Vietnam, Russians behind German lines in World War II, and even American revolutionaries fighting the British in the 18^th-century all relied on the local population for help. It is, therefore, in the best interests of the forces fighting the insurgents to

befriend the local population and help it in any way that they can. If the locals come to see the insurgents as the trouble, rather than the opposing forces, those forces will win.

Medical treatments like the ones described above can play a key role in the strategy of coalition forces. They build up goodwill among the local population, and word spreads quickly that the coalition cares about them and will do anything that can to help them not just to fight a war but also to have a high quality of life aside from the war.

This aid must continue. It must be consistent over a period of years, not just months. This operation is just one in a series of activities designed to implement this strategy.

Surgeon Saves Girl, USAF