David Eubank, a U.S. aid worker and former Green Beret, braved sniper fire to save a little girl sitting next to her dead mother on a street in Mosul.
Eubank's rescue as U.S-backed Iraqi forces worked to liberate the war-torn city from the Islamic State was captured on video, one of several his Free Burma Rangers organization has made, according to CBS News (Warning: graphic violence).
With smoke from canisters as cover, Eubank ran from behind a tank and into enemy fire to rescue the girl, about 5-years-old, among dozens of dead bodies, reported the
Los Angeles Times. He scooped up the girl in pigtails and returned to safety in about 12 seconds.
"I thought, 'If I die doing this, my wife and kids would understand,'" said Eubanks who is now back in the United States. CBS News said an Iraqi general plan to adopt the girl he rescued.
The Free Burma Rangers was formed by Eubank in 1997 as a Christian humanitarian group providing emergency relief in ethnic minority areas in Myanmar, said London's Daily Mail. The group has been providing relief for families caught in the crossfire of Iraqi and Islamic State since January 2016.
Hosanna Valentine, a longtime member of the Free Burma Rangers, said the fighting to retake Mosul has been some of the worst they have ever seen, said the Times.
"This is one of the starkest and most desperate situations in the world," Valentine said at the medical clinic of the Iraqi 9th Division, which they were embedded with. "And with ISIS, it doesn't feel melodramatic to say it's evil.”
"One of the first things David does is apologize to people for what America did here. Not all of it was wrong, but some of it was. So we come and help not from a desire to have control or use the resources. If you go act out of love, that can be life changing," said Valentine.
Eubank spent nearly 10 years in the military before joining the Fuller Theological Seminary, a non-denominational institution, meeting his future wife Karen and forming the Free Burma Rangers. Eubank is often joined by his family on missions, including their children: Sahale, 16; Suuzane, 14; and Peter, 11, said the Times.
"Although people would say it’s dangerous, (his work) brings meaning," Karen Eubank told the Times. "It's not like we thought 25 years ago, 'Let's take our kids to a war zone with ISIS.' But in Burma the people we worked with poured love into us, and this is more than what I can give my kids on my own."