The President. This is Dr. Christian, Dr. Karla Christian, who really symbolizes the best of America. She and a team of hers have performed a surgery on a little Iraqi girl who was discovered by United States marines. People in Nashville raised the money for the family; they were supported by the marines there in Iraq. Some of the marines raised money, and they sent this little girl, whose heart was ailing, to America, right here to Nashville. And Karla and her team healed the little girl, and she's back in Iraq.
And the contrast couldn't be more vivid. We got people in Iraq who murder the innocent to achieve their political objectives, and we've got Americans who heal the broken hearts of little Iraqi girls. Ours is a compassionate nation that believes in the universality of freedom. And ours is a nation full of loving souls that when they find a stranger in need will lend their God-given talents to help that stranger. And that's precisely what happened.
Karla G. Christian. Thank you.
The President. I want you to thank your team there for all the good work you've done.
Dr. Christian. Thank you for all you've done.
The President. God bless.
NOTE: The President spoke at 10:29 a.m. at Nashville International Airport. In his remarks, he referred to Karla G. Christian, associate chief of pediatric cardiac surgery and director of pediatric cardiac surgical education, Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, and her patient Amina Al'a Thabit.
George W. Bush, Remarks on Arrival in Nashville, Tennessee Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/277718
