"Sherri's going to leave me because of what I look like now," he told himself.

And then he thought of Donna. "My mom won't be able to look at me."

Holding up at home

On Sunday, as Jim and Donna returned from buying his present, a gas grill at Home Depot (which he has yet to use), they saw a police cruiser in front of their house.

Jim thought, "Have the dogs gotten out?" They have a Shetland sheepdog and a miniature pinscher.

The officer said the Marine Corps was trying to reach him. He should call Camp Lejeune, where Hennagir's unit was based.

All Jim can remember of the phone call is that he stopped listening when the Marine sergeant major told him that "both legs were amputated above the knee."

Within the hour, Donna was on the prayer line of their church, the Gloucester County Community Church, and that afternoon their house filled with friends, who quickly began running the household.

That day, and for the next 10 weeks, Donna wrote every important number for doctors and Marine contacts in her Bible. That way she knew she wouldn't lose them.

The next day, two high school girls who live across the street wrote a letter and delivered it throughout the neighborhood.

The letter told how Hennagir had been gravely injured in Iraq. It said that regardless of how you felt about the war, please show your support for the family by flying an American flag outside your house.

On Tuesday, Jim drove Donna and their daughter Nadia to Philadelphia International Airport to fly to Germany. On the way home, as Jim and another daughter drove into their neighborhood, what they saw brought them to tears - a sea of American flags. On every house on their block, and on many houses in other blocks.

Arriving at Landstuhl, Donna prayed for help. "Please, Lord, give me strength so I can be strong for Ray."

She walked into his room, held back her tears. His face was massive with bruises and swelling. Even his good hand, she said, was four times normal size. His arms were all still bloody.

Donna will never forget his first words. Ray doesn't remember them, because he was so juiced on painkillers.

"Hey, Mom," he said. "I'm immortal."

Among the eight tattoos Hennagir got after joining the Marines is one with the Chinese characters for immortality. Since he had survived, he figured maybe he was.

Hennagir's next sentence was to his sister, who is to be married in November. "Nadia," he said, "do you mind if I go to your wedding in a wheelchair?"

That was when Donna and Nadia lost it.