During the first visit, only boys and men ventured out to receive gifts the 211th Aviation Battalion had collected from their families in Utah.
When the Utah soldiers returned last month to Jegdalek with seven pallets of humanitarian aid, they spotted girls carrying away supplies flown in from the Bagram Airbase by two CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
Among the girls was 5-year-old Halima.
Each time she peered out at the strangers, one of her eyes turned to the side. The condition, called strabismus, can cause permanent eye damage resulting in blurry vision.
When the Americans returned to their base in north central Afghanistan, Salt Lake Valley Apache pilots Chief Warrant Officer Layne Pace and 1st Lt. John Richardson arranged for surgical treatment for the little girl, according to the Utah National Guard.
"The story unfolded on both sides of the planet," said Celeste Stauffer, whose husband Kerry Stauffer is also an Apache pilot. "We were learning about the little girl in e-mails and telephone calls as we were collecting items for the village, while our spouses and family members were delivering what we had collected."
Base officials agreed to the operation, but the girl would have to be treated at an Egyptian hospital, located near the facilities of the Utah soldiers. The condition was easily met: the aviators had already made friends with the medical staff.
"When we asked to see the Egyptian commander and showed him the picture of the girl," recalled Pace, "he smiled and said, 'Bring her, we will do the surgery.' "
But first, the soldiers would have to ask Halima's father and the village elders for permission to operate.
The Utah pilots returned to the village with several more pallets of aid - and an interpreter. Within hours, Halima and her father were loaded into a Chinook for the trip to the Bagram hospital. Two days later, the surgeons operated, cutting a number of ocular muscles in the girl's eyes.
"Her father woke her up when we arrived and she sat straight up with her eyes shut," said Pace. "When she heard our voices she squinted and burst into a huge smile."
A day later, Halima was alert and looking over the coalition camp with clear vision.
The Utah soldiers treated the young patient to hamburgers and took up a collection to make up for wages her father had lost while he was away from his construction job at the village.
"It was a huge morale booster to be taking care of someone's child," said Jamie Robinson, wife of the unit commander, Lt. Col. Rodney Robinson. "The soldiers themselves have 335 children of their own back home under the age of 18."
Russian hairdressers at the base washed the girl's hair, cleaned her shoes, put polish on her finger nails and painted flowers on her toes for the trip home.
The aviators returned the girl and her father to their village Sept. 13 - with another shipment of humanitarian aid.
"While the country is on the mend from the repressive Taliban government and decades of regional strife, it still faces many challenges," Utah National Guard spokesperson Maj. Lorraine Januzelli said in news release. "Pressing issues include a heath-care system that can not yet provide adequately for all its citizens and recurring shortages of basic goods."
The Utah families have been collecting items since the attack Apache battalion, based in West Jordan, arrived in Afghanistan in May. The 300 soldiers were deployed in February and are expected to remain in the war zone for a year. The pilots protect convoys and provide air support to ground troops seeking out insurgents.
Want to help?
l Supporters have organized into a group called Angels for Afghanistan to collect donations.
l For information, visit http://www.angelsfor afghanistan.org or call Globous Relief Fund Foundation at 801-977-0444 and ask for Sarah.
l Especially needed are items to help stock a girls' school under construction and a boys' school scheduled to be built soon.
