<table> </table> BAGHDAD | Staff Sgt. Luis Falcon, 38, was patrolling the streets of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, when he saw Shahad Abbas.</p><p>The 11-year-old girl was in a large, decrepit wheelchair, and the stumps of her legs where her calves should have been were crusted with dried blood.</p><p>Falcon couldn&#8217;t just walk on by, so he stopped to talk. He came back the next day and the day after that, then every day for six months, bringing her toys, gauze for her legs, a new wheelchair. Anything she asked for, he would bring.</p><p>Shahad became his mission. So when she asked for legs, that became his mission, too.</p><p>On Friday, his dream and hers came true &#8212; just three weeks before he&#8217;s scheduled to leave Iraq. Shahad was fitted with prosthetic limbs in a U.S. military-funded clinic in Baghdad that normally provides artificial limbs for wounded members of the Iraqi security forces.</p><p>&#8220;We created a bond, and I didn&#8217;t need a translator to interpret the bond we had,&#8221; Falcon said.</p><p>Shahad lost her legs when a roadside bomb exploded as she was walking to school. Her little brother, Ali, was killed. Falcon went to his commander, to his chaplain, to anyone who would listen. The quest was frustrating and took months of pleas.</p><p>He threatened to walk away from the Army if he couldn&#8217;t give Shahad legs.</p><p>&#8220;Sometimes I couldn&#8217;t figure out what made sense about being here. ... Are we making a difference, or are we not?&#8221; he said. &#8220;But I looked at her, right there, and it all made sense.&#8221;</p><p>Eventually, he was able to win permission for Shahad to be treated at the clinic, which was founded in 2005 by Chris Cummings, a prosthetist from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. On Friday, Shahad arrived at the clinic to get her legs.</p><p>By Friday afternoon she was taking her first steps. At first she was tentative and a little scared.</p><p>With a grin on her face, she took several shaky steps into Falcon&#8217;s arms.</p><p>&#8220;She was looking at my legs, and I was looking at her legs,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Thank God.&#8221;</p><p>Falcon doesn&#8217;t see his mission as completed. He pulled the picture of himself and Shahad from his pocket and looked at it with concern. In three weeks, he&#8217;ll be gone. Who will check on her? Who will bring her medical supplies and call in favors to help her?</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care how long it takes,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ll come back and find her.&#8221;