In two and a half years, the Miss-Lou has lost four of its native sons serving in the military.

Last week, Vidalia native Lance Cpl. Billy &8220;B.J.&8221; Brixey Jr. made the ultimate sacrifice when he died of injuries he sustained in a bomb explosion in Afghanistan.

He was just 21.

Brixey&8217;s family and teachers remember him as quiet and kind, a hard worker in the classroom and on the football field.

But the work that may have made him the most proud was his job as a Marine mechanic.

And we in the Miss-Lou should be proud of his service as well.

Brixey died just three weeks after arriving in Afghanistan &8212; a place some of us might have even forgotten we had soldiers in combat.

With news of casualties every day from Iraq, the work our military is doing in Afghanistan has often been overshadowed.

But like the brave men and women who are fighting for freedom in Iraq, Brixey and his fellow Marines and soldiers in Afghanistan are making the same sacrifices, fighting for the same goals and dreams for people who have long been oppressed.

Our prayers today are with the family and friends of B.J. Brixey.

He died doing a job he had come to love, a dangerous duty that had to be done for the sake of freedom and peace in the world.