Today is Gilad Shalit's 20th birthday. Don't recognize the name? He is the young soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas on June 25. He's been in their hands for 2 months now, and he is spending his birthday with them.

From the Times Online, June 29th:

He was raised, the middle of three siblings in a small community in the rolling hills of northern Galilee, near Israel’s border with Lebanon. His father, Noam, is a manager at the Iscar machine tools company; his mother, Aviva, works at the Society for the Protection of Nature. His brother is a college student and his sister is at high school.

Friends describe Gilad as studious, good at physics and a little shy. But they say he is quite determined in his own quiet way, and that when he was called up a year ago he volunteered to join a combat unit. His elder brother, Yoel, 21, is a student at a polytechnic in the northern Israeli port of Haifa. He has a younger sister at high school.

A normal kid. A smart kid. A fucking kid. And he is spending his birthday, injured, in the hands of madmen.

Gilad, wherever you are, whatever they've done to you, the world is celebrating your birth today. We hope to do it many more times in the coming years. Many happy returns, Gilad. You've earned them.