Heroes 2011
'It was the single best thing that I did'
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As Army Lt. Col. Vincent Barnhart gazes at photos of children taken during his 2010 deployment to Iraq, his eyes moisten as he fights back his emotions.
The tears are borne of happiness, though, and the names he remembers bring a smile. The stories he tells about the kids all have a happy ending. This is not your typical war story.
For those who know him, it’s obvious that Barnhart, the 1st Armored Division surgeon, has a soft spot for children. He has six of his own, four of them adopted. So when he heard about a program to help disabled Iraqi children, he was eager to pitch in.
Barnhart spearheaded the division’s involvement in the nonprofit Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids project, which has distributed about 1,000 pediatric wheelchairs to Iraqi children with permanent disabilities since 2005. The project relies exclusively on individual and corporate donations.
Barnhart shows a photo of a grinning Iraqi boy, sitting in his first set of wheels.
“This guy I really liked. He was a sweetheart.”
He flips to the next one.
“This little girl that’s lying in her bed and can’t bend anymore, if she’d had this earlier she probably would not be in such a circumstance.”
During three events in Baghdad last year, Barnhart and his team of medics assembled and distributed 100 state-of-the-art, fully adjustable wheelchairs.
“It was the single best thing that I did the year I was there,” Barnhart said.
Around 95 percent of kids who come for the free wheelchairs suffer from birth defects or childhood illnesses, such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, polio and even debilitating adverse vaccine reactions. Some were victims of roadside bombs or suicide bombers.
Most of the kids can’t walk and they spend their lives confined to a floor in a back room, too much a burden for the family to take on a trip to the market. Sometimes the overwhelmed parents will drop them off at orphanages.
“There’s a stigma associated with disability and they just don’t have the resources,” said Barnhart.
The story of how the program got started is an unlikely one, but it ends with the hundreds of Iraqi children enjoying some mobility for the first time in their lives.
Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids founder and director Brad Blauser came to Iraq as a last resort after a post-Sept. 11 career meltdown. He was on the verge of bankruptcy, but landed a job with defense contractor KBR.
It was there that Blauser met Maj. David Brown, now a lieutenant colonel, who told him about disabled children in Mosul who were pulling themselves through the streets and didn’t have access to a wheelchair.
Within six months Blauser set up a website, received $22,000 in donations and formed a partnership with a Bozeman, Mont., nonprofit group — dubbed Reach Out and Care Wheels — that uses a highly adjustable pediatric wheelchair made by South Dakota prison inmates.
Blauser never looked back despite multiple setbacks, including his KBR supervisor frowning on the extra work he was doing on the side.
That’s when Gen. David Petraeus saw a story that aired on CNN’s “Heroes: An All-Star Tribute.” Petraeus was enamored with the project and offered Blauser a place to stay at the Victory Base Complex in Baghdad where he could coordinate his efforts.
“So many doors have been opened for me at critical junctures,” Blauser said, crediting Petraeus for helping him stay in Iraq to continue his charity.
Although 1,000 wheelchairs may seem like an enormous number, it’s only scratching the surface of what is needed.
A 2007 UNICEF report said that one in seven Iraqi children has at least one disability and Barnhart estimated that 150,000 kids in Iraq are in need of some sort of mobility device.
Maj. Richard Floyd with the 1st AD surgeon’s office said every kid they helped matters, even if they couldn’t provide wheelchairs for them all.
“Specifically for these Iraqi families, it means everything,” Floyd said.
Blauser said tribal and family marriages and improper birthing methods contribute to the large numbers of infants born with defects.
“What [Iraq’s] Ministry of Health is prepared to provide is very minimal,” said Barnhart. “The Iraqi health care system has reached the tipping point. They’re able to provide basic primary care to the citizens of Iraq, but this is so far from basic primary care.”
Barnhart said many of the Iraqi families he met were surprised at the American generosity, because for many all they hear are reports about U.S. troops killing their people.
“You’re sowing seeds that over a generation — it’s not going to be instant — are going to fit into the kind of relationship we hope to have over there,” Barnhart said.
Blauser said many of the children “flip out” when they see their wheelchairs because to them it’s just like the bicycle they see other kids riding around on.
It’s not only the kid and their families that benefit, though. Blauser said many times he sees soldiers standing outside trying to regain their composure before going back in to help teach the families how to adjust the wheelchair.
“Some of the troops, they’ve had to do some stuff that’s going to haunt them the rest of their lives,” Blauser said. “This gives them something good to remember.”
Blauser said he hopes to continue the program even as the American presence in Iraq continues to draw down. He also aims to raise money for a factory in the Baghdad area so they can procure the equipment and make the wheelchairs locally.
Afghanistan is in his sights, but so far he has no offers of support there.
Blauser envisions bringing local disabled people from Kabul onto base to assemble wheelchair components, so wheelchairs would be locally available for military units, Provincial Reconstruction Teams and other organizations operating in Afghanistan.
While Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids continues its mission in Iraq, Blauser hasn’t forgotten Barnhart, even though the 1st AD officer is back in Germany.
“He committed to me right away,” Blauser said. “I need more like him.”
Barnhart closes his picture album, but it’s evident the pictures and memories are etched into his mind.
“Is what we’re doing really making a difference?” he said. “I don’t know, but it made a difference to those kids.”
Those wishing to donate to Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids can do so at www.WheelchairsForIraqiKids.com via PayPal, or they can mail a check to the address listed on the site.
