Last week, soldiers at FOB Callahan in Northern Iraq watched a car slowly pull up to a checkpoint, stop, and watched as a woman laid down a large black bag.
The soldiers responded as they would to any potential bomb. What EOD (Explosives and Ordinance Disposal) specialists found however was no IED (Improvised Explosive Device), but an infant boy.
Staff Sergeant Paul Briscoe, who is in charge of FOB Callahan's medical aid station, said, "We unwrapped it to make sure he was alive-and he wasn't sick, he wasn't dead, he wasn't injured. Sgt Briscoe went on to say, "He was a perfectly healthy baby. I'm guessing three to seven days old. He was in perfect health. There wasn't a scratch on him."
The baby was nicknamed Alex Callahan after the soldier who found him and the base. The soldiers and interpreters took care of the baby, including buying diapers and formula while trying to figure out what to do with the abandoned infant. The brother of an Iraqi who works at the base has volunteered to adopt the baby, as his wife and he have been unsuccessful in their attempts to have a child of their own. Interpreters at the base have been taking donations to help care for the infant.
