The words you never want to hear from a military officer or policeman. We heard them today.
We were informed by the military today our son, Specialist Elijah Rao, was killed by an IED earlier today in Afghanistan. His convoy was stopped at the site of an explosion. Elijah stepped out of the humvee and within moments, another IED was detonated, taking Elijah out. Something we have feared for years, but hoped would not come to pass. Elijah survived two tours in Iraq and then Afghanistan. He was scheduled to come home in January on leave and then come home for good in May. We were so close to being out of the woods until today....
He was an soft spoken, thoughtful, gentle, bright, loving person and this hits really, really hard. He has a wife and 1 year old. The coming week will be very difficult. We were visited by two incredible Army officers earlier today and spent most of this evening with another. We have a lot of grief and ceremony to move through this week, and beyond.
Tonight, we've cried about all we can cry today, I think, and now about all we know to do with ourselves is to let people who we think might want to know... know about our beloved Elijah.
Here's is picture I recently took of Elijah.
Please pray for our brave young men and women, and their families, who risk their lives in that hell hole of the middle east to try to keep us safe at home.
