Sgt. Gary Hughes remembers
It was a scorching day in southern Iraq
When he noticed a woman cloaked in a black chador
Slumping to the floor, holding her stomach.
Taking a break from handing out water bottles, Hughes, 27,
Soon realized the young Muslim woman
Was pregnant. Worried she was losing the baby,
He said he slung his rifle on his back
And swooped her into his arms.
"It all happened so fast," said Hughes,
The physical training instructor for Britain's 2nd Royal Tank Regiment.
"I ran to the hospital as fast as I could -- about 200 meters."
That's roughly the size of two football fields.
Hospital staff nicknamed the 6-pound boy
"Yussuf Gary." Coincidentally,
The baby was born April 4,
The same day Hughes' son, Cavan,
Celebrated his first birthday
Back home in Birmingham, England.
"Whether it was my fatherly instinct or what,
I don't know," Hughes said.
"I did what any guy would do."
Dr. Abdul Hussain, from Az-Zubayr General Hospital,
Told a pool reporter embedded with Hughes' unit that the soldier
"Will be remembered here for a long time."
"He showed the true meaning of human kindness
In the face of adversity,"
Hussain told the News of the World of England.
"He is a hero in all our eyes."
Following the example of his grandfather, a Royal Marine,
And his father, also a soldier,
Hughes joined the army straight out of high school.
Stationed in Fallingbostel, Germany,
He went on peacekeeping missions to Bosnia
And spent two years in Northern Ireland.
A difficult part of his mission in Iraq,
He said, was enduring the heat,
"And seeing the children begging for water and food," he added.
"You know, such basic things."
He said he's happy the baby whose mother
He helped in Az-Zubayr, near Basra,
Will be living in an Iraq
Free of Saddam Hussein's regime.
"In that town there, for us, that was our high point," he said.
"These people were being ruled by an iron fist. Now they're free. ...
You'd like to think that in 10 years' time this child will have
Some of the same opportunities we had as children."
Hughes is back in Germany, and May 23,
He heads home for a few weeks off.
What's the main thing he wants to do?
"To see my boy. Taking him swimming.
Feeding the ducks," he said.
"And seeing him walking and talking.
He's started to do that since the last time I saw him."
