Staff Sgt. Dillon Heyliger poses with Iraqi children near Baqubah, Iraq, in the building discussed in his story, April 2007. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Muessig)
By Dillon Heyliger
I’ve always held on to hope that through all the human suffering and pain in the world, sometimes, bad things happen for a reason. That good could rise from the ashes of destruction and evil. That there are moments in each of our lives in which we get a glimpse of this truth and they become memories that can make difficult struggles worth enduring and give hope for the future.
In 2005, I was a young sergeant in the Army. My wife, at that time, was pregnant with our first child. Early on in the pregnancy, doctors detected something was wrong with the baby. Our daughter had a condition called gastroschisis - The baby’s stomach would not fully develop in the womb, leaving an open hole in her stomach with intestines outside of her body and exposed to amniotic fluid.
On July 8, 2005, I watched as my daughter, Leora, was born with most of her intestines hanging outside of her tiny body. She was bagged up in plastic and moved to neo-natal intensive care. Surgery and a month-long hospital stay had her patched up and put back together. Tests soon showed her body began to function normally and she was able to eat on her own after weeks of feeding tubes and IV’s. With some words of caution and follow-up care advice, we were discharged into the world.
She’s now 11 years old, and to this day she’s had no further complications. We were lucky and blessed, the best-case scenario for the given situation. We lived in America with a great amount of resources, first world hospitals and very talented doctors. The total Tricare insurance cost of care coverage was almost $240,000.
Fast forward to April 2007. I was assigned to a rifle company in a Stryker Brigade Combat Team forward deployed to Baqubah, Iraq. At the time, Baqubah was the most violent and dangerous city in Iraq. Al-Qaeda (AQIZ) claimed it as their stronghold capital city. Deep-buried IED’s were wired and ready for us in every road. Machine gun bunkers and complex ambush sites lie in wait around many corners in the streets and palm groves of the city.
Staff Sgt. Dillon Heyliger and Sgt. Jason Vaughn relax between security patrols near Baqubah, Iraq, April 2007. Vaughn was killed in action on May 10, 2007. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Muessig)
For the first time in our deployment cycle, the locals were very grateful for our presence. They had been tortured, killed and forced to live under the same Sharia law now imposed by ISIS. They were quick to welcome us into their homes and provide whatever intelligence they could on the insurgent fighters who overran their home.
We conducted daily patrols as well as many multi-weeklong operations in this sector. We suffered casualties in the streets, and knew to maintain cover and concealment within local structures or vehicles. During one particular operation, we had been staying in a large dilapidated project building. It was an old, tall, probably 8-floor, combination brick and stucco-looking building. It was the typical yellow-orange middle-eastern sand color. The structure had few windows still intact, many children roaming loose and scarcely any parents to be seen.
It was half abandoned by previous residents, much like the rest of the city. We spent a night in an abandoned apartment there. The following morning we awoke in a pile of cockroaches and dirt, put on body armor, checked weapons and prepared to be extracted by Stryker vehicles. We knocked on several doors looking to hide out in a room on a lower floor closer to the exit. Multiple attempts yielded no success. Finally a young couple, seemingly in their mid-twenties, answered the door to their dwelling.
Our little squad consisted of the company commander, platoon sergeant, a handful of men and one woman Iraqi interpreter. We spoke with the family for 5 minutes, through the interpreter, all the while a five month old baby, cradled in the mother’s rocking arms, screamed, cried and distracted from the otherwise peaceful conversation. We asked if something was wrong with the baby. The couple seemed worried and worn out, more so than typical first-time parents.
Staff Sgt. Dillon Heyliger, an Iraqi interpreter and Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Byron relax between patrol movements near Baqubah, Iraq, April 2007. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Muessig)
The couple placed the baby down on a table and began to unwrap the swaddling blankets to expose gauze wrapped around the baby’s abdomen. As they began to unwrap the gauze, I stood up and stared for a moment before claiming; “Wow, I know what that is...” The baby’s intestines lay exposed on the outside of his body. “My daughter had that. It’s gastroschisis.” The commander and crew stared at me and everyone awaited some further explanation.
The interpreter relayed my words and the family looked to me for some hope that my daughter was alive and ok. I told them she was. She had surgery and was now a year and a half old and very healthy. The commander asked why they haven’t taken the baby for surgery. They explained they had no money to afford the $1000 price tag to save their son. My assessment of their living space and environment was that they could barely afford food, water or other basic human needs. They explained they knew a doctor in Baghdad that could fix their son but certainly would offer no pro-bono charity to ease the child’s suffering.
The company commander pulled me aside. “I actually have exactly a thousand bucks on me in FOUO (For Official Use Only) money.” This is money given to commanders to replace destroyed property or accidentally killed livestock. “What do you think, what should we do? Should I give it to them?”
I was still in some sort of calm shock to be in this sort of seemingly coincidental situation. “Well, yea...yea I think we should...definitely.” That’s all it took for the commander to now move back and closely approach the young couple. “I have a thousand dollars I’m going to give you.” The couple looked shocked. “I want to know that you will use this money for the surgery and nothing else.” He didn’t get much beyond that sentence before they began crying and bending over back and forth, hugging him and the interpreter. They were very grateful. We answered five months of daily, hourly, minute-by-minute prayers. To this day I often think of that moment.
Our company lost eight men during our 6 months in Baqubah. Many were wounded, both physically and emotionally. I never compare the cost of that deployment to the potential good we may have done there. It just doesn’t add up or compare in my opinion. The men who serve alongside their fallen brethren can certainly never justify their deaths. But, if nothing else during my 16 months in Iraq, we did something amazing for that family. Certainly, God put us there to restore hope and answer someone’s prayers.
Staff Sgt. Dillon Heyliger poses with 4 of 5 of his children. His daughter Leora, pictured center, will be 12 years old this July 2017. (Photo by Amy Heyliger)
It’s been almost 10 years since that moment. I don’t know what became of that boy or his parents. I’d like to think they are alive and well but I’m realistic in knowing there’s a high chance they’ve been continuously exposed to war in those ten years since. I hope someday to find out. I’d love for my daughter to meet the Iraqi boy her age she helped save.
Staff Sgt. Dillon Heyliger is a Public Affairs Broadcast Specialist in the U.S. Army. He has more than 14 years of active service and one 16-month deployment to Iraq. He is a Purple Heart recipient and is currently stationed at Fort Bragg, NC.