UWL grad serving in Army Rangers injured in Afghanistan - WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |

WATERLOO, IOWA (WXOW/KWWL)  A former UW-L football player serving as a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger has been seriously injured in Afghanistan.

Initial reports indicate that U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Jason Church, lost parts of both legs in an explosion this week on a mission in Afghanistan.

The 23-year old Airborne Ranger is the son of Hudson, Iowa native, Colonel David Church and his wife, Barb, of Wisconsin. Colonel David Church is a West Point graduate and a Colonel in the U. S. Army Reserves.

Jason Church, who grew up in Menomonie, Wisconsin, serves with the 1st-23rd Infantry, a Ranger Airborne unit, based in Fort Lewis, Washington.

The 2011 UW-L graduate played fullback for the college. He is also graduate of the UW-La Crosse ROTC Program.

His grand parents, Becky and Jason Church are longtime Hudson residents and retired educators.

They told our sister station, KWWL in Waterloo, that Jason was in an Army vehicle when it struck an I-E-D during a mission south of Kandahar, near the border with Pakistan.

They don't have many of the details yet, but their grandson will be flown to Germany for stabilization and then to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington.