toledoblade.com --

His face was hidden, but his despair was not.

In fact, the emotions of a Toledo soldier - crouched in Iraqi sand and appearing on front pages around America this weekend - were simply too great to ignore for some. And throughout the weekend and yesterday, phone calls and e-mails crisscrossed the continent.

"We got calls over the weekend from complete strangers: `Are you related to Dave Borell?'" said John Borell, the father of Sgt. David Borell of the Toledo-based 323rd Ohio National Guard Military Police Company. "[Congressman] Marcy Kaptur called us, and we were wondering if George Bush would call."

"I've had phone calls from as far away as Florida. And I don't know anyone in Florida," agreed Dave Pacholski, the brother of Sgt. 1st Class Bryan Pacholski, who in the photo consoles Sergeant Borell.

"This man ... said he just wanted to express his gratitude," he said.

A woman called from Chicago, Mr. Pacholski added. She cried.

The image of the two men in desert fatigues ran across front pages Saturday of America's daily newspapers, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Washington Post. In addition, The Blade ran many of Sergeant Borell's comments from an e-mail in which he criticized two Army doctors' decision not to treat three badly burned Iraqi children.

The children's parents brought them to the base for treatment, but doctors - according to Sergeant Borell - looked at the children momentarily and turned them away after deciding their injuries were not life-threatening.

"This photograph serves to reinforce what I truly believe," wrote Les Elkins, a South Padre Island, Texas, motel owner, in an e-mail to The Blade: "that, in general, Americans, even the biggest, burliest, and toughest of us, are truly caring and compassionate when it comes to the pain and suffering of others."

The photo, in the pages of his local newspaper, caught his eye over breakfast. Emotions took over.

"Toledo, as well as all of America," he wrote, "has two more of whom to be extremely proud."

Other comments to The Blade came from Iraq, where Sgt. Jeffrey Gottke confirmed Sergeant Borell's description of the incident.

He called Sergeant Borell "conservative" and "honest" and said he "loves the Army very much."

"To see him take the stand and speak out as he did says to me that this is something very, very important," Sergeant Gottke wrote.

Speaking on the floor of the U.S. House last night, Miss Kaptur (D., Toledo) said she was inspired by the pair's story and is seeking a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld "to propose an expedited schedule by the United States to establish temporary field hospitals in Iraq, perhaps in concert with our Arab allies, serving the wounded and the suffering. We can work with other organizations around the world, but without question, the United States is in the lead now, and it is important that we rise to this moral imperative," she said.

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