The man in the uniform

After meeting a 12-year-old boy needing surgery while on duty in Iraq, Maj. David Howell worked to bring him to the U.S.

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Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of three stories about Mohammed and Maj. David Howell. The first story was published April 13.

The message had to travel more than 6,000 miles, across the Atlantic Ocean, across two continents. Had to be passed from the U.S. to a contact at Camp Ramadi in Iraq, from police officer to police officer, to the mother of a 12-year-old Iraqi boy who had asked in clear English, almost six months earlier, to be saved.

“I’ll be there. Bring Mohammed.”

On the plane from the U.S. to Iraq in April 2009, on his way to the place where he’d said they would meet, Maj. David Howell still doesn’t know if this will come together, still doesn’t know if they will be there.

But oh, he hopes.

It had been a long six months. So many steps to take to bring Mohammed, a 12-year-old Iraqi boy who was badly burned in a house fire as a child, to the U.S. for medical attention.

How does one person go about bringing an Iraqi child to America for surgery? Howell, a Michigan National Guard physician’s assistant, didn’t know.

He looked for other soldiers who had done the same thing — taken a child under their wing and brought them to the U.S. for medical care. He couldn’t find any.

Start with getting him a passport, he figured. Then get him a visa, find a surgeon willing to provide medical attention, raise the money necessary for medical expenses.

Find him a place to live, a family who will take him in, a school he can attend.

And then — finally — get him to the U.S.

On that April day, Howell arrives at the meeting spot and there stands Mohammed, the first person he sees.

Mohammed turns, runs around a corner. Howell follows, ecstatic. He sees the rest of Mohammed’s family.

“There they were, waiting,” Howell said.

Driven to help

With dark hair and olive skin, Mohammed reminded Howell of his own son, back home halfway across the world, said Beth Gardon, Howell’s fiancé.

Mohammed was younger — he looked to be between 8 and 10 years old — but the resemblance was one of the first things Howell mentioned, Gardon said.

Here was a beautiful kid who, at some point in time, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And still was suffering for it.

A boy whose father had been a translator for the Marines.

“I felt like, you know, something needs to be done to help the family,” Howell said. “And the one thing I could do to try to help the family was to try to turn around and help Mohammed.”

His mind made up, Howell went to ask Michigan National Guard Lt. Colonel Greg Durkac for permission to speak with Mohammed’s family, to see if there was any way he could help. In Durkac’s 20-some years in the military, he’s seen a lot of things — and learned not to discount anything.

He’s seen soldiers hand out candy to Iraqi children, play soccer with them, take books to their schools. Seen soldiers look at the Iraqi children as their own.

This was the first time he had seen a soldier stand up and say, “I’m going to commit myself, my time, my family, to this child.”

“I remember ‘Doc’ telling me this was a personal choice of his and personal commitment to the family that ‘Doc’ wanted to make,” Durkac said. “I was kind of taken back by his degree of investment and commitment to the boy that sacrificed so much for our soldiers and Marines.”

Durkac told Howell he didn’t have all the answers. He didn’t even know where to start with this one. But he told him yes.

Ten minutes later, Howell spoke with Command Sgt. Maj. Dale Clarmont, the other senior in the battalion. Right then, Clarmont knew Howell would succeed in helping Mohammed.

“I just knew in the back of my mind, just knowing ‘Doc’ Howell, that he was going to bring this boy back,” Clarmont said. “He was going to find a way.”

Plan in action

Howell e-mailed friends and family members to let them know what he wanted to do. He told them about meeting Mohammed and his decision to try to help him.

Gardon still has the first e-mail, which was sent Nov. 8, 2008.

“He said, ‘I need your help,’” Gardon said, reading from the message. “‘I’m in the process of forming a plan to help Mohammed. I will need funds for medical operations … and a lot of prayers.’”

From there, the e-mails flew to Howell’s acquaintances.

I need your help.

I need someone who knows about immigration.

I need someone to help find a family with whom he could stay.

“I was putting together a plan on the fly and I didn’t have a road map or any guide to lead me or show me how to do this stuff, so I just figured, well, the first step is getting his passport and the second step is going to be to try to get him a visa,” Howell said.

The passport was easy. The visa took three or four months. In the meantime, Howell sought out a plastic surgeon and a hospital to host the surgeries.

He found MSU surgeon Edward Lanigan, who works at Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital and offered his services free of charge after hearing Mohammed’s story.

“Your heart just bleeds for the family,” Lanigan said.

Then there was the question of funding. Howell established a nonprofit corporation to which donations could be made. People began flocking to the nonprofit’s site and giving money.

Someone would call Howell wanting to donate, then introduce him to someone else, then to someone else, all of whom made donations to help defray the costs.

“At each step along the way, someone — and sometimes they were people who were known to me ahead of the time and sometimes it was people who came forward out of their own goodwill — came to me and said, ‘Hey, is there something I can do to help?’” Howell said.

Mohammed’s mother wanted him placed with a family that followed the Islamic faith. Howell called the Islamic Center of East Lansing and met with officials who helped him find the Saeed family.

After meeting with the Saeeds, Iraqi-Americans living in East Lansing, Gardon told Howell that “everything would be OK.”

They had found a home for Mohammed.

“I don’t know how to explain it real well, but once I met (Ziena Saeed), I knew he was in good hands,” Gardon said. “If I was giving one of my kids up across the world, she would be the person I would want to take care of them.”

Part of the family

Four or five times a week, Mohammed calls Howell. He tells him Miguel Cabrera hit another home run. Or he tells him the Detroit Tigers won. Howell asks him about school, his homework.

Before the two left Iraq, Mohammed’s mother signed guardianship over to Howell.

Mohammed doesn’t say much to strangers, but he’ll tell you about playing baseball with Howell and his two sons.

In the last year, he’s become part of Howell’s family.

“It’s been like having another son,” Howell said.

Howell, who came out of a combat tour in Iraq after heavy fighting and many casualties, has spent the last year and a half getting to know the Saeeds. He’s been in and out of the Islamic school Mohammed attends.

He’s been to the Islamic Center in Dearborn — the largest mosque in the U.S. — and he’s met the imam there, who is the spiritual leader for more Muslims in North America than anyone else.

In Iraq, while on duty, there were rules for military personnel: You never go near a mosque. Because of the sensitivities, you never go in one. You’re not allowed near its leaders.

“But over here, at the East Lansing Islamic Center, the first time I went over there, they said, ‘Yeah, come on in, take your shoes off,’” Howell said.

Through Mohammed, he says he’s gained a better understanding of the people, of their culture. He’s noticed the similarities between the cultures. His family has formed a friendship with the Saeeds, who likely will attend his wedding.

With all of the roadblocks that had to be overcome before Mohammed could come here, with all of the challenges Howell faced, all of the steps he had to climb to get him here, Howell says he’ll call it fate that it worked out.

“I believe everything happens for a reason, good or bad,” he said. “And this was one of those good things.”

Howell will tell you stories of people who stepped up each time an obstacle presented itself.

The time he and Mohammed almost didn’t get out of the airport in Baghdad and a Scottish man — a perfect stranger — came forward and asked what he could do to help.

It’s enough to give you chills, Gardon said. Each time there was a problem, there suddenly was someone there to help.

“So yes, I think it was fate,” she said.

“I don’t want to necessarily say God, but you know, it’s like somebody, somebody above us had designs — Allah or God or whoever you want to say — somebody looked out for Mohammed and David. They got here and they got here OK.”

The third story in this series, which will be published next week, will look at Howell’s and Mohammed’s return to Iraq.

See previous stories about Mohammed, including reports about his first surgical procedure by an MSU surgeon and the near-completion of his operations..

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