Advil and an Olive Branch

   A couple of weeks ago, a Canadian convoy vehicle got off the road near Ghani Kalachah, an Afghanistan village of approximately 5,000 souls, and some of the villagers helped the troops get it back on the road. This week, the troops went back to say thanks. A team of Canadian army medics set up a temporary clinic in the village. The physician in charge was Navy Lieutenant Ian Beck, a former GP from London, Ontario, who left his private practice three years ago to join the Forces.
   Among the treatments performed by the medics were the cleaning of infected cuts, and the dispensing of Advil. A dentist on the team pulled out some rotten teeth and handed out toothpaste and toothbrushes. There is no clinic in the area, so the temporary quarters were quickly overrun by those in need of medical aid. Said Beck, in an interview quoted in the Toronto Sun, Saturday March 25, "It was Band-Aid treatment (that will ) go a long way to showing that we're here to help as Canadians and as Westerners".
   Romanian troops that had guarded the medics as they worked, helped to unload a sea container full of humanitarian supplies such as cooking pots, diapers and rice, as the clinic was shutting down. The supplies were left to the village elders to distribute. Hopefully, this diplomatic healthcare effort will be seen as the olive branch it is by some who may otherwise hate all westerners. If this little clinic helps to change the mindset of even one hatefilled individual, like the one who wielded his axe on March 4th, it will have healed so much more than anything the doctors could cover with a bandaid.