A group of soldiers were in an Iraqi neighborhood, surrounded by a group of about 20 delighted little children when a suicide bomber exploded a car nearby, harming and killing some of the children, including this small girl who was taken to the hospital by Major Bieger (above). The child did not survive the bombing.
This photograph grabbed my heart and attention as soon as it popped up on my screen. To see a child bleeding endlessly and so vulnerable and fragile, it really made me want to break down. It is a paradoxical photo because despite the despair it provokes in me seeing the little child dying, it also gives me hope and comfort to see the Major treating her as if she were his own, with such love and compassion amidst war.
I guess this photo tells me that no matter how horrific human actions may be, there will always be another more beautiful aspect of human nature: that we are capable of the better, that we can love no matter how much in suffering or how deep in the war zone we may be. They may take away their children, their security, even their very lives. But they cannot take away love.
