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Issue Date: April 16, 2006
Walking tall
Grit got these three patriots to Iraq and back. Now, high-tech limbs are helping the athletic vets the rest of the way.
Plus: A salute from atop prothestics expert.
By Dennis McCafferty
Staff Sergeant Ryan Kelly
Kelly, 25, of Prescott, Ariz., is retired from the Army and is pursuing a bachelor's degree in aerospace studies. He also is training to be a helicopter pilot.
Michael McNaughton took President Bush up on his offer for a run at the White House on April 14, 2004
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Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly was about to do so much good in Iraq. He was a civil affairs specialist, as well as a certified paramedic. His job was all about building up the country, making it better than ever. Take the water system in Ramadi, which dated back to the 1950s. It had deteriorated considerably over the decades. The Iraqis actually cut up old car tires to make rubber pipe seals to keep the crummy system running. Kelly and his fellow civil affairs team members would show up at the plants and provide the insight and resources to fix them. "The reaction from the local officials would be, 'Wow, somebody actually cares,' " Kelly recalls. "This was really rewarding for somebody in his 20s, coming up with ways to effectively rebuild a community."
On July 14, 2003, Kelly was on his way to a conference just outside Baghdad, when an improvised explosive device (IED) struck his Humvee. Kelly was blown from his seat, then tried to plant his right leg to get up. He felt nothing. "I thought the entire floor of the Humvee had been taken out," he says. "But it was still there. That's when I knew my leg was gone."
As he was packing to go home to get his new leg, he actually considered leaving behind his right shoe. "I thought, 'What the hell am I going to need this for?' " Kelly says. "I thought my leg would be something that belonged on a mannequin, something completely dysfunctional."
But he found that his prosthesis, built for below-knee amputees, was far more useful than he anticipated. "In therapy, they told me I could live the life I wanted to live," he says. "I realized quickly that I simply lost my leg, and I'd just have to learn how to do everything all over again, but I would do it." And he's doing that and more, successfully completing training to be a helicopter pilot and instructor. Eventually, he wants to pilot an emergency medical services (EMS) helicopter.
Kelly also has taken on tremendous physical challenges. He heard about Soldier Ride in 2004, an event in which severely injured vets cycle cross-country to raise support for Wounded Warrior Project, a Roanoke, Va.-based non-profit that provides resources and assistance for wounded military vets (woundedwarriorproject.org). Kelly did one 60-mile leg of the ride in Colorado. "My injury still felt fresh, and I was using muscles I hadn't used in a long time," he says. "After I finished, some of us gathered over beers. As we complained about how sore we were, we decided to do the whole ride the next year."
He trained by pedaling up to 50 miles a day. And he had a special leg made to help him withstand the ride. Last summer, for 58 days, he biked from Marina del Rey, Calif., to East Hampton, N.Y. "We'd only stop to eat and fix our tires," Kelly says. "You'd be riding in 100-degree temperatures in California, then along the snow in the Rockies. To see the entire country like this, and realize that you served this nation, is the way to do it."
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Sergeant First Class Michael McNaughton
McNaughton, 34, was in the Army and is now an operations specialist with the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
It was a routine job: Some incinerators needed to be installed in Bagram, Afghanistan, and McNaughton -- a platoon sergeant with the mine-clearing team -- had to make sure the area was clear. It wasn't. On Jan. 9, 2003, McNaughton stepped on a live one. "I knew it the moment I stepped on it," says the avid runner and married father of five. "You'd see an animal or child step on one. I knew what it would sound like. And I knew my leg would be gone."
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, he had a visitor: President Bush. "He told me to give him a call when I was ready to run," he says. "That was all the motivation that I needed." He got his prosthetic leg, made by Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics. "I taught myself to trust it," McNaughton says. "You have to be fully confident that it's going to hold up when you land."
In spring 2004, he took the president up on his offer and ran a mile with him. "I want you to know," Bush said afterward, "just how proud I am of you." McNaughton was floored. The commander in chief is proud of me? Me? McNaughton then trained for a marathon. It wasn't easy. He fell. He got hurt. On Jan. 9, 2005 -- two years to the day he lost his leg -- he ran the Walt Disney World Half Marathon. In March 2005, he ran the 26.2-mile Bataan Memorial Death March Marathon event in New Mexico. McNaughton says, "We're changing a lot of perceptions these days."
Cover and inside photographs of Michael McNaughton by Peter Gregoire for USA WEEKEND
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First Lieutenant Melissa Stockwell
Stockwell, 26, is now retired from the Army and is studying to become a prosthetist at Century College in greater Minneapolis.
When she got the news about her leg, Melissa Stockwell was not angry. She was happy to be alive.
On April 13, 2004, she was running a routine supply convoy with water and meals to troops outside of Baghdad. Again, the culprit was an IED. Stockwell's Humvee did not have any doors; the vehicle swerved, and her leg was crushed along a guardrail. "After surgery, I just thought, 'Well, I'm still alive. Better this happen to me than to a colleague,' " she says.
Her injury has given her a greater sense of purpose. She knew nothing about prosthetic devices before. Now, she's committed to the field as her life's work. "You're amazed at the technology," she says. "It won't bring your old leg back. But it allows you to do incredible things."
Stockwell was always very physically active, but she recently set a lofty goal -- to complete a triathlon. She achieved that in February, completing all three triathlon events -- biking, running and swimming -- just as she would have with two legs. "It felt great," she says. "I hope to do it again." Her new goal: to make the 2008 U.S. Paralympic swimming team. "I have a long way to go," Stockwell says. "But I plan on getting there."
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For specialists like me, helping injured vets has never been more fulfilling.
By Todd Anderson
Prosthetists nationwide, like me, work with our amputee military veterans every day. Enabling them to live full lives is more than simply a job. It's an act of patriotism. And although no one would label the amputees coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan as "lucky," here's one way in which my peers and I can help them more than ever: with technology. In fact, prosthetic science has never deployed so much technology to produce such utilitarian limbs.
Prosthetic science advances at wartime.
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NASA-tested titanium and carbon fiber that's very strong and light are used to create these artificial limbs. Today, a leg for an above-the-knee amputee will weigh 5 pounds; it was once twice that much. Which makes it all the easier for an amputee to move.
Inside today's prosthetic device (known as a prosthesis) is a microprocessor that also enhances life-like movement. Before, the prosthesis was passive, reacting to what the amputee tried to make it do. With microprocessors, however, the artificial limbs become much more intuitive. While running, for example, the microprocessor will anticipate in mid-stride what is happening, helping the amputee prepare to absorb the impact as he is about to plant his foot on the ground.
This progress has come in an era of global conflict, as prosthetic science always has advanced during wartime. World War II inspired products that meshed wood and rubber, and the "soft heel," which sported a more flexible toe. With Vietnam, prostheses bent and bounced in a way that returned energy to the amputee, like the spring on a diving board.
These days, the amputees who are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are arriving stateside, eager to succeed. They challenge themselves. They want to get back into the military field, possibly back to combat. They want to compete in sports. Thanks to their unique spirit and our current technology, we're making this happen.
Amputee and world-class athlete Todd Anderson, a certified prosthetist, is vice president of professionaland clinical services for Otto Bock HealthCare, a top prosthetic products manufacturer.
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