Jae S. Moon dies of injuries from I.E.D.

A Christmas Eve phone call from their son in Iraq was the best holiday present the Moon family could have gotten.

That joy quickly turned to sadness on Christmas afternoon when the family learned their son, 21-year-old Sgt. Jae Moon, had died in Baghdad.

The family had been waiting for three weeks to hear from their only son. When they finally talked to him on Christmas Eve, he said he was OK and needed some food and an air mattress. He also asked for some blankets.

But what he didn't tell the family was that he had been wounded, said his father, Young Moon. And, according to the Army, Moon died as a result of those injuries on Christmas Day.

An Army spokesman said Moon, a Neshaminy High School graduate who was on his second tour in Iraq, was hurt Dec. 14 when an “IED,” or improvised explosive device, exploded near a Humvee he was riding in. Two other soldiers were killed and a third lost his leg, the military told the Moons.

Young Moon said Wednesday he couldn't believe his son said nothing about his injuries during that Christmas Eve call.

At the family's home Wednesday night on Dolphin Road in Middletown, uncles and friends tried to console the Moons. In the living room, pictures of Jae in his dress uniform and at his high school graduation were placed between candles on a cabinet next to one of his Army uniforms.

His mother, Ki Moon, sat in a nearby chair.

“How come Christmas Eve we hear his voice and the next day they take his life?” she said, her hands shaking until a family member gathered them in her own.

“He promised me he would come home,” she sobbed.

The Moons came to the United States when Jae was a toddler, following other family members who had left Korea. The couple, who run a beauty supply shop in Philadelphia, worked hard to provide for their two children, Jae and his older sister, Crystal.

“He was the kind of friend [that] if you needed a ride somewhere he was there, if you needed money he was there, if you needed someone to talk to he was there,” friend James Chun said.

Jae graduated from Neshaminy in 2003 and wanted to pursue a career in the FBI, according to lifelong friend Alice Nam. But there wasn't enough money for Maryland University, so he chose another route that might get him into the FBI — the Army.

Nam, Jae's first girlfriend, said he started looking into the Army before he even turned 18. He enlisted after graduation.

Nam said after boot camp Jae was sent to Korea before eventually landing in the infamous “Sunni Triangle” in Iraq.

“He was a little shaken up [when he got back from Korea and Iraq],” Nam said. “I think he saw some things he didn't expect, didn't want to see.”

She said she was shocked to learn he was going back to Iraq. Jae shipped out for the last time in October. She said she spoke to him a few weeks ago and they reminisced about his first going-away party after graduation and how good it had been to have all their friends together.

“He understood what living was about,” another friend said of Jae's Army experience. “He said he planned to take care of his sister and his mom and dad for the rest of his life. He knew that's what he should do.”

A U.S. Army suncatcher made of glass and metal now hangs in the window of Jae's bedroom across from a shelf bearing a G.I. Joe figure, a teddy bear in fatigues and pictures of the young man in uniform. The suncatcher was Jae's Christmas present from his sister Crystal this year.

“We don't need any more of this kind of bad and sad story,” Young Moon said. “It is Korean custom, if the parents have died, bury them in the ground; if a kid has died, bury them in your heart. I have to bury my son in my heart.”

From the Courier Times