Ailing Iraqi orphan picks out a father - A cerebral palsy- afflicted boy meets a soldier from Wisconsin and forms a bond. But how to defeat the bureaucracy?
MAUSTON, WIS. — Capt. Scott Southworth knew he'd face violence, political strife and blistering heat when he was deployed to one of Baghdad's most dangerous areas.
But he didn't expect Ala'a Eddeen.
Ala'a was 9 years old, strong of will but weak of body -- he suffered from cerebral palsy and weighed just 55 pounds. He lived among about 20 kids with physical or mental disabilities at the Mother Teresa orphanage, under the care of nuns who preserved this small oasis in a dangerous place.
On Sept. 6, 2003, halfway through his 13-month deployment, Southworth and his military police unit paid a visit to the orphanage. They played and chatted with the children; Southworth was talking with one little girl when Ala'a dragged himself to the soldier's side.
Black-haired and brown-eyed, Ala'a spoke to the 31-year-old American in the limited English he had learned from the sisters. He recalled the bombs that struck government buildings across the Tigris River.
"Bomb-Bing! Bomb-Bing!" Ala'a said, raising and lowering his fist.
"I'm here now. You're fine," the captain said.
Over the next 10 months, the unit returned to the orphanage again and again. The soldiers would race kids in their wheelchairs, sit them in Humvees and help the sisters feed them.
To Southworth, Ala'a was like a little brother. But Ala'a -- who had longed for a soldier to rescue him -- secretly began referring to Southworth as "Baba," Arabic for "Daddy."
Then, around Christmas, a sister told Southworth that Ala'a was getting too big. He would have to move to a government-run facility within a year.
"Best-case scenario was that he would stare at a blank wall for the rest of his life," Southworth said.
To this day, he recalls the moment when he resolved that would not happen.
"I'll adopt him," he said.
Prayers and talk
Before Southworth left for Iraq, he was chief of staff for a state representative. He was single, worked long days and squeezed in his service as a national guardsman -- military service was a family tradition. His great-great-great-grandfather served in the Civil War, his grandfather in World War II, his father in Vietnam.
The family had lived in the tiny central Wisconsin city of New Lisbon for 150 years. Southworth was raised as an evangelical Christian; he attended law school with a goal of public service, running unsuccessfully for state Assembly at the age of 25.
