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Marines help Iraqi toddler recover from insurgent RPG attack

by Cpl. Ray Lewis

Third-degree burns now scar the face of a two-year-old Iraqi girl.

Lance Cpl. Jon Wier, Cpl. John F. Parina Jr., and Navy Seaman Nicholas A. Jackson provided medical and emotional attention to a 2-year-old Iraqi girl after she received third-degree burns from a rocket-propelled grenade blast. Wier is a 22-year-old team leader from Orange County, Calif. Parina is a 22-year-old squad leader from Cleveland, Ohio. Jackson is a 26-year-old hospital corpsman from Littleton, Colo. All are assigned to K Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Regiment under Regiment Combat Team 5 and will be conducting operations for the next several months. (photo by Cpl. Ray Lewis)

When insurgents shot a rocket-propelled grenade, initially aimed at a combat outpost occupied by the Marines of K Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, it veered off and struck a wall where the child was playing.

"She was at her house, which is behind our house, and when the blast hit the wall she was burned by the heat of the blast," said Lance Cpl. Jon Wier, a team leader with K Company.

The girl screamed in agony, said the 22-year-old machine gunner from Orange County, Calif.

Her parents ran to their front yard to get her, Wier said.

Since the Iraqis there live in a rural area that is full of palm trees and rocky roads acres away from any kind of medical facility, the parents didn't know what to do, he said.

Marines at the outpost were the girl's only hope, Wier added.

The parents sent their daughter over to the Marines with two Iraqi men, he said.

The Marines' corpsman was one of the first people to see the child.

"When I got back from patrol, I found that the little girl was here," said Navy Seaman Nicholas A. Jackson, a hospital corpsman attached to K Company.

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