] The photograph's caption doesn't give her a name. Nor ] does it name the man who cradles her. He is just "a ] Marine medic" And she is just "a 4-year-old ] girl." ] ] He sits cross-legged on the ground, one heel scraping a ] small hollow in the sand, eyes closed as he holds her. ] She curls into the fetal position, her bare feet pale in ] the sun. Her doll fingers reach to touch his camouflaged ] chest, the pink sleeve of her sweater smudged with blood. ] ] Her mother, we are told, was killed in the crossfire near ] a place called Rifa. ] ] That is one way we might describe it. Another way, the ] military way, is shorter and simpler: collateral damage. ] Or, if that seems a bit abstract, there's ] "liberated," the Newspeak of our patriotic age. ] ] Of course, those words mean nothing to the 4-year-old ] girl. She is too young to have the words she needs to ] frame her world's end. There is only the incomprehensible ] fact of her mother's absence, this strange, helmeted man. Cost Of War Too High For One Little Girl |