We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging to bring you this special announcement.

For a moment, I need to write about someone besides myself. Someone I love very much. Someone in serious need of prayer. I want to tell you about a boy named Jay (we actually called him Jamie, but now that he is an adult, he prefers Jay).

I met Jay and his family at church. We started going there in about 1988 when Rachel was almost 6 and Seth was about 3. It wasn't too long before we became friends with a great couple with two boys, one a few years older than Rachel and one just younger. Jay was the younger of the two. Even though there was a 2-year and 3-month age difference, Jay and Seth became fastest of friends. They shared a deep and abiding interest in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters and all of the assorted weaponry that went along with those comics and cartoons. Jay, being older, actually owned a ninja bo and real nunchucks and assorted other weapons, much to Seth's extreme jealousy! These two were inseparable, sharing a fantasy-world with an intensity that others of their friends could not have understood. These were my boys, and I loved listening to them play and hearing them spin their stories!

Funny thing about these two sensitive little boys who played at such violent games - I think it was all a sham. Especially for Jay, I believe that living in a world of make-believe where he possessed super fighting skills was his way of getting by in a sometimes scary world where monsters and tough guys seemed to rule and gentle ones like himself were victims. He and Seth were kindred spirits that way, and maybe that's why they were so close during those years when make-believe is still an accepted form of play.

Because of the age difference, Jay discovered high school and girls way before Seth, so they began to drift apart as Jay made his way through adolescence. There were still occasional sleepovers and that road trip that I took them on to Red Bank, NJ to see where the film 'Clerks' was made. Yes, their movie sophistication (or lack thereof) had come a long way from TMNT! And we prevailed upon Jay to carry the cross in the wedding procession when Tim and I married in 1999. After that, contact was pretty limited. Rachel ran into Jay's brother a time or two and, while the adults continued to see each other from time to time, my news of the goings-on with Jay came through his parents.

Obviously, Jay grew up, and it took some time for him to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. I remember talk of Navy Seals or military intelligence, but he found his calling as a medic, joining the Marines and training as a corpsman. One thing you have to understand about a Marine corpsman - he'll do anything to take care of his marines, and they, in turn, do anything they can to take care of and protect him. It looked like Jay had finally discovered a way to battle the monsters in a productive and useful manner - to care for the wounded on the battlefield, doing whatever he needed to do to save his comrades.

Jay went to Afghanistan this spring. He came back to the States on August 8th, four days after stepping on an IED in Helmand Province. He lost both legs and an arm. The other arm is severely damaged and the hand has just a thumb and forefinger. Mercifully, there does not appear to be any brain damage and his internal organs are fine. He's at Bethesda Naval Medical Center where he has undergone surgery with more to come. When he's ready, he'll go to Walter Reed for rehab and prosthetics. This will be a long, long road for him and his young wife.

I lost a son to suicide. I continue to grieve and feel that loss with every waking minute. I've never been angry about it as is so common among survivors of suicide. I can only feel on overwhelming sorrow for the pain Seth must have experienced.

But Jay? This makes me angry. What is the point of this beautiful, gentle and kind young man getting blown to bits in a faraway land in a war that has lost its purpose? Oh, I understand that the Taliban are the bad guys and harbor the perpetrators of 9/11, but the US is not the first country to discover that winning a war in that country is not within the realm of possibility. And yet we continue to send our young people over to fight and die. And then, then one day it's not just some young soldier. It's Jay. And I'm heartbroken for him and for his family and hope that he and they will find the strength to do whatever it is they need to do to heal and recover and rebuild his life.

Please pray for him, my friends.

I love you, Jamie. I only wish you had stuck with the nunchucks.