National Guardsman helps Iraqis walk again

Photo courtesy of Mississippi Armory National Guard Capt. Steve Lindsley fits 14-year-old Ali with an artificial leg.

By John Gordon*

MONROE, La. (UMNS)—Capt. Steve Lindsley was certain his days would be full, arranging logistics for a military police battalion and dodging mortar fire, rockets and snipers while deployed to Iraq.

He never imagined he would have time to help children and a legless Iraqi veteran walk again.

Lindsley, a member of the Mississippi Army National Guard’s 112th Military Police Battalion, made the most of the 14 months he spent away from his home and family. With the help of his employer, Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson, Miss., Lindsley volunteered his time and skills to open a prosthetics clinic in Baghdad.

“(I) saw a lot of ... folks walking around … on crutches or rolling in a wheelchair because they didn’t have an artificial limb,” said Lindsley, who makes and fits artificial limbs at a Methodist Rehabilitation clinic in Monroe.

“So we decided that we needed to do something and see if we could help with that.”

Lindsley got the idea while on patrol with his unit. He saw two amputees, Ali, 14, and Taleb, 20, walking together on crutches. 

Ali lost a leg when hit by a truck seven years ago, and his widowed mother could not afford an artificial limb. One of Taleb’s legs was amputated because of complications from cancer.

“We just pulled over and flagged them and asked them if they would like to have a prosthesis—(an) artificial limb—and both of them got excited,” he said. “So those were our first two patients.”

Photo courtesy of Mississippi Armory National Guard An Iraqi citizen gets fitted with an artificial leg by Capt. Steve Lindsley.

He enlisted U.S. companies to donate more than $500,000 worth of parts to make artificial limbs. The first difficulty was getting the materials to Iraq.

The initial shipment, delivered by the Army, took six weeks to arrive. Five of the 14 boxes were lost.

Later, Federal Express stepped in, donating the shipping and getting materials to Iraq in about a week.

Still, Lindsley often had to improvise.

He needed an oven to heat the plastic sheets for molding artificial limbs. So Lindsley pressed into service a pizza oven that came from Saddam Hussein’s family.

“I daresay … we put it to a lot better use than Saddam did,” he said.

Lindsley also used a disarmed mortar tube as a base for riveting the straps and parts onto the artificial limbs he was building. He finished the first two for Ali and Taleb. 

Ali learned to walk again after two hours of coaching.

“We dropped him off at a military checkpoint about two miles from his house,” said Lindsley. “And he walked the last two miles and totally forgot his crutch; he left it in the vehicle.”

The clinic grew quickly, with nearly 70 patients. One was Fallah Ali, an Iraqi veteran who lost both legs fighting in the war against Iran.

“He actually crawled out of a burning tank, tied tourniquets on each of his legs, and pretended he was dead when the Iranians were searching the battlefield,” Lindsley said. “He ended up crawling a couple of miles to safety, or actually to get medical care.”

Photo courtesy of Mississippi Armory National Guard Members of the 112th MP Battalion surround 14-year-old Ali as he tries out his artificial leg.

“I am … very, very happy. And I want to thank Mr. Lindsley for his help,” he told Armed Forces News.

Lindsley is back home in Louisiana. The Iraq clinic is being run by Staff Sgt. Chris Cummings, who also has a background in prosthetics. Cummings, from Miami, serves with the Army Reserve’s 478th Civil Affairs Battalion.

The clinic is scheduled to stay open until at least June. United Methodist Mark Adams, president and chief executive officer of Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson, hopes the operation can be turned over to Iraqis.

“Ideally, I think it would be nice for us to have an ongoing relationship with the clinic, to be able to bring some of those folks in Iraq over here and train them to be orthotists and prosthetists,” Adams said.

Lindsley’s supervisor, Chris Wallace, said the clinic has done more than help the patients.

“We certainly hope that it made an impact on the relationship and the thought of those civilians over there toward American citizens,” Wallace said.

Lindsley said he missed his family and friends during his deployment, but called his experiences with the clinic “extremely satisfying.”

“Everywhere we are, each day, we have opportunities to help other people,” he said.  “And I just happened to be in a position there where I could help in a way that stood out.”

*Gordon is a freelance producer and writer in Marshall, Texas.

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