*Amputee pilot reaches new heights (10/27/04)

Amputee pilot reaches new heights / An `inspiration,' he returns to active duty in a historic flight
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NEWS
VINCENT P. BZDEK
Washington Post
473 Words
27 October 2004
Houston Chronicle
3 STAR
7
English
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON - Whenever Lt. Col. Andrew Lourake visits Ward 57 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, he takes along a sheaf of stories to buck up service members who have lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One story describes a World War II pilot who lost both legs and went on to become Britain's fourth-best ace. Another tells of a U.S. soldier who returned to active duty with his mortar platoon just six months after losing his foot in a mine blast on a Baghdad highway. Another tells of a sergeant who lost a leg in Afghanistan and went on to graduate from the Army's paratrooper school, the first to do so with a prosthetic leg.

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