People cannot always do great things, but sometimes they can do small things with great kindness -- even in a war zone.

A little Iraqi Bedouin girl with a badly burned arm gave Capt. Jon Brillhart and members of his Virginia Army National Guard unit the chance to be kind.

The story began, physician assistant Brillhart said, late one morning in early October with a radio call from a combat medic on a route-security mission "somewhere" in Iraq.

The message relayed to his desk said a 4-year-old girl had fallen into her family's campfire, severely burning her right arm from hand to elbow.

Brillhart is the medical officer for the state Guard's 2nd Squadron, 183rd Cavalry, operating in southern Iraq and northern Kuwait.

He was interviewed by telephone and e-mail from the unit's base at Camp Beuhring in Kuwait, a little way from the Iraqi border.

Without immediate treatment, the child's arm would become infected quickly and would have to be amputated. "This girl needed definitive advanced care quickly," he said.

This wasn't the first time local Iraqis needed medical care from Brillhart's soldiers, but because of the dangers from ambush, unexploded munitions and roadside bomb attacks, U.S. commanders don't send their troops "outside the wire" lightly.

Lt. Col. Walter Mercer, a Hanover County school teacher, commands the squadron's 500 soldiers.

After weighing the possible threats against Brillhart's recommendation, the cavalry squadron launched an emergency medical team into the night: 12 soldiers, four heavily armed and armored Humvees, and Brillhart.

At the nomadic Bedouins' camp, he said, the Guardsmen formed the gun trucks into a defensive perimeter -- "weapons charged" -- in the desert.

"I can remember the peaceful stillness in the air as we walked towards the family's three-sided tent," said Brillhart, who works in an orthopedic surgery center in Portsmouth. "There were thousands of stars out and hundreds of sheep roaming freely at our feet."

Still, the 44-year-old medical officer from Portsmouth acknowledged being nervous: "We were not only making ourselves a target but also my patient as well."

Then "an elderly female dressed in all black emerged from the darkness holding a small girl . . . with [her] right arm outstretched," he said.

Brillhart's examination revealed that the girl, whose name was Fatma, had suffered extensive second-degree burns -- from the tips of her fingers to her right elbow, he said.

Bits of wood and sand stuck to the burned and blackened tissue.

He removed the dead skin, a tedious and extremely painful process -- "I did see tears often" -- and dressed the wound.

"Fatma never flinched," Brillhart said. "She is an extremely brave little girl."

"I remember the drive back from the camp, wondering if the girl would be OK throughout the night," he said. "Truthfully, I never imagined I would be doing this in the desert of Iraq, with limited supplies, and a not-so-ideal sterile setting."

The next day, he and Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Peacock, a medic from Suffolk, returned to examine the burns. "Fatma's care continued almost daily for several weeks as we meticulously debrided and cleaned her wounds," Brillhart said.

By the Americans' third visit, she would greet Brillhart by name.

"She continued to remain strong throughout the encounters," he said, "and we began to develop a special bond."

The cavalrymen took Fatma's family under their wing, with the Virginians' relatives back home donating boxes of clothing for the Bedouins.

Though communication, even with an Arabic translator, was difficult, Brillhart said, "the family was extremely grateful."

Then the nomadic sheep herders -- in the midst of Fatma's care -- folded their tents and vanished into the vast desolate desert.

"We were devastated," Brillhart said, "and I personally feared that we had not done enough to save the arm and hand from certain infection."

Early last month, a patrol from the 183rd happened upon Fatma and her grandmother, walking along the road the soldiers were covering.

The girl had full use of her arm and hand. The badly injured limb had healed completely.

The squadron's citizen-soldiers are due to return to Virginia next month.

Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or pbacque@timesdispatch.com.