There are many amazing things about Dan Azad's life.

The 18-year-old Iraqi student was brought over to Maine by philanthropist Paul Schupf, who saw an ABC News story about Azad and was moved to help him escape the civil war in that country. Schupf is paying Azad's tuition to attend Thomas College in Waterville. Maine's two senators helped expedite Azad's departure from Iraq because the news of his good fortune made him a target for potential kidnappers. In fact, Azad's best friend was shot and killed while the two were walking together last year. And finally, that Azad was even able to come to the United States was a miracle of immigration law; although millions of Iraqis have fled that country, according to the UN, only 500 have been allowed to stay in the United States.

All those are remarkable developments in the life of a bright and talented young person who could have lost that life at any moment in the violent streets of Baghdad. But here's the thing that strikes us as the most amazing: In all the photographs of Azad, he still looks like a kid. If you were to pass him on the street, you wouldn't even imagine that this brave young man has weathered the kind of daily horrors that moved him to say to our reporter, "In Baghdad, we don't go out during the day ... we don't have life in Baghdad. The dark became our best friend."

We welcome Dan Azad into our midst. We hope that the bright Northern daylight of Maine becomes his new best friend -- and that this intrepid and deceptively young-looking old soul from Baghdad gets a piece of his youth back while he's here.