Friends and relatives were praying for it in Macon, Miss. But, then, friends and relatives always pray for it when the unthinkable happens.

And the unthinkable had happened to Thomas Hamill, a contractor from Macon. Last month he was kidnapped in Iraq after insurgents ambushed a convoy in which he'd been driving.

That was the unthinkable. And yesterday was the unbelievable (but not, they say, to those who prayed). The Christian Science Monitor (The Moderate Voice's alma mater) reports:

Sunday morning at around 11:15 a wounded man came panting up to a New York National Guard unit near the Iraqi town of Belad, about 30 miles south of Tikrit. The man said he was....He said he'd heard the US patrol pass the building in which he was being held, so he'd pried a door open and chased them half a mile up the road.

Other than an old gunshot wound to the arm, Mr. Hamill seemed fine, so the US troops hastily cordoned off the house where he'd been held prisoner, capturing two Iraqis and one AK-47 automatic rifle. Hamill was then evacuated to Baghdad - an emotional bit of good news after a month of record US casualties and increasing insurgent attacks. "I'm just so happy my daddy's going to be home," says his 11-year-old daughter, Tori.

A former dairy farmer from Macon, Miss., Hamill had signed up with Kellogg, Brown & Root as a truck driver to make enough cash to give his family a cushion against his home region's tough economic times.

So amid stories reporting more U.S. military fatalities, angry partisan rhetoric on both sides, charges and countercharges about government and corporate censorship...here is a story every American (we hope) is happy to read.

The news was especially joyful to people at his church:: "We always knew he was in the Lord's hands and never gave up hope," worshiper Cate Ledbetter told the Monitor.

But let's not forget that Hamill was one of the lucky ones who survived a troubling new "insurgent" (read that Sadaam partisan or terrorist) tactic: the constant seizing of foreigners in Iraq. Some have been released, Hamill got away and others have wound up dead. It relects this controversial war's new phase.

So there will likely be more Hamill-like captives — and, sadly, few of their ordeals are likely to end as happily as his did...