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StumpsAuthor(s): Donald AndersonSource: The North American Review, Vol. 289, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2004), p. 3Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25127077 .

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NAR

In Afghanistan, Taliban clerics, as a

near matter of course, ordered amputa

tions?a hand, a foot, combinations. A

father of seven, picnicking near Kabul, was accused of spying. Unknown to the

man, Taliban troops had been

encamped nearby. Pulled from his

home three days after and escorted to an unused soccer field, his

left hand and his right foot were removed. His

foot now missing above

the ankle and his hand

above the wrist, the thirty

seven-year-old man was

not the only patient that

day in Kabul to be sent home with

stumps blunted by poorly stitched skin

folds. Eyes wide, the man has in the

newspaper photo a hunted expression.

During the fall of 1993, a Midwestern

university-trained anesthesiologist

undertook a hike in the Rockies. In an

unexpected turn, a boulder he rested

against toppled to break his leg and to

pin him to the earth. Unable to shift the

stone, he said he thought of coyotes and

wolverines and traps and bears. The

doctor said later that he'd thought also

of wild hogs and snakes, though he said

he knew at the time that hogs were not

native to the region and that snakes

were in hibernation. "I wasn't myself,"

he explained.

Snow in the forecast, temperature

and darkness falling, he determined to

amputate his leg. Constructing a

tourniquet of his shirt, the doctor then

unfolded a fishing knife he'd sharpened the day before on a two-stage electric

sharpener he'd ordered from Chefs

Choice. He flayed the skin and fat to

expose the left and then the right side of

his knee joint. He parted tendons and

ligaments, blood vessels and nerves. He

would work, he said, then pause to

gather himself. He severed the patellar

ligament to separate the femur and

tibia, then pulled the thighbone free. He

dragged himself to reach his F250 Super

Duty Ford 4WD.

It was a standard transmission he

manipulated to the nearest town. US

Weather Service satellite photos

confirmed a less than predicted storm?a light but wet snow?blanket

ed the area the following day. In this

way, the doctor forgives himself for

having removed his leg.

In news elsewhere, the AP reports on

an eleven-year-old with the Northern

Stumps DONALD ANDERSON

Alliance left to guard a wounded

Taliban warrior outside Mazar-e-Sharif,

the front advancing after days of insis tent bombing. A British photo-journal ist caught the boy on film. The age of

the Russian carbine makes the boy himself look old. The Brit later reported the boy had a ready response when

asked what he thought should be done

with the prisoner he'd been marooned to guard: "They should cut off his legs."

A LEADING CAUSE OF AMPUTATION IS LAND

mines. By last count, over 250 million

land mines (approximately one mine

per able-bodied American) are thought to be stockpiled around the world, with some 70 million already deployed. Land

mines are cheap, but defusing them is

expensive. The cost ratio to mine versus

to de-mine a field is 3:1000.

Like landmines, cluster bombs are

cheap and effective and dangerous follow

ing approved or scheduled war. Designed to undo concentrated troop and tank

formations, cluster bombs are dropped

from planes in canisters that open at preset

altitudes. In its turn, each canister releases

up to 200 armor-piercing bomblets that

drift to earth on parachutes. The bomblets are designed to explode upon contact The

thinnest part of a tank is its top surface, in

the way that a soldier's most vital spot is

his covered or uncovered skull. Of course, not all bomblets explode and because they are delivered from altitude, weather conditions can cause

unexpected and wide

dispersal.

Pentagon strategists privately

acknowledge that, in Afghanistan, it was

a mistake to make humanitarian aid

food rations dropped by the US the same color and relative size as cluster

bomblets. Bomblets which survive

impacting, even

penetrating earth, can

be detonated by perching birds, passing cows, a farmer's plow?or

the touch of a hand,

maiming or killing who

would mistake these con

tainers for food.

In Saudi Arabia, your

right hand can be

amputated for theft, but for highway

robbery, your left foot is removed.

In 1598, Spanish explorer Don Juan de

Onate conquered New Mexico. For 220

years M?xico Nuevo belonged to Spain,

passing to Mexico and then on to the United States. When the people of Acoma Pueblo battled the Spanish,

killing Juan de Zaldivar?Onate's

nephew and field marshal?the

governor condemned twenty-four

Acoma to the amputation of a foot. It is

also claimed that Onate banished the

one-footed men's wives and children

into slavery, dragging them from the wounded men and the pile of feet.

It is estimated that the 1991 Persian

Gulf War itself accounts for 1.2 million

leftover cluster bomblets.

In 1998, New Mexico commemorated

the 400-year-old Spanish settlement of

the state. Prior to the celebration, a larg

er-than-life statue of Onate was

commissioned and a Visitor Center established in Alcalde, New Mexico. On

January 6,1998, a lone dissident, or

some number of Indian commandos,

sliced off the right foot of the tall bronze man. It has been determined that the

vandal or vandals, under cover of dark

ness, expertly applied a power grinder.

"Persistence of Vision" is a scientific

term for the human ability to see an

object long after the object has been

removed. D

January-February 2004 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 3

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