Veterans finding new mountains to conquer

Veterans finding new mountains to conquer
By Veronica Whitney
Vail correspondent
February 28, 2005


With a smile and a cigarette between his lips, he moved from his wheelchair. Then, Navy Cpl. Christopher Fesmire transferred his damaged body to the mono-ski that would take him down the slopes.

These days, Fesmire is learning to walk again and on Friday, he was learning how to ski.

Iraq injuries differ from past wars: More amputations, brain traumas

Iraq injuries differ from past wars: More amputations, brain traumas
By William M. Welch, USA TODAY

The war in Iraq is producing a group of young combat veterans who face a lifelong struggle to cope with physical wounds so severe, they might not have lived through previous conflicts.
The nation's system of veterans' health care is already seeing the first of those men and women, saved by modern battlefield medicine but in need of long-term rehabilitation. While their numbers are not nearly as large as the injured from Vietnam or World War II, the severity of their wounds is often greater than from previous wars.

A Soldier's Battle Back

A Soldier's Battle Back
Eight months after losing his right arm in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Norberto Lara takes hold of his new life.

By Michael Doyle
Bee Washington Bureau

(Updated Sunday, February 27, 2005, 6:29 AM)

Staff Sgt. Norberto Lara practices using his chest and back muscles to control his new prosthetic hand Feb. 11 in a Washington hospital. Lara, a graduate of Visalia's Sequoia High School, lost his right arm in June in Iraq.
Lisa Nipp / McClatchy News Service

"I never thought I would lose an arm," Lara said.

Wounded soldier has a bittersweet reunion

Wounded soldier has a bittersweet reunion
February 22, 2005
By Peter Hirschfeld Times Argus Staff

SOUTH BURLINGTON – Army Spc. Thomas Brooks limped with a grin through the throng of returning Guardsmen Monday morning.

The baby-faced 21-year-old St. Albans native just learned to walk again three weeks ago, nine months after an insurgent-fired mortar explosion shattered his left leg. Fellow Guard members, who hadn't seen Brooks since he was taken blood-soaked from a U.S. base outside Baghdad in May, laughed and marveled as he showed off his prosthetic limb.

"It's awesome, seeing the looks on their faces with me walking," Brooks says. "The last time I saw them I was being carried away on a stretcher. It's amazing to see them all again."

After combat, six soldiers receive Purple Hearts

After combat, six soldiers receive Purple Hearts

By CARY LEIDER VOGRIN
Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Spc. Travis Williams turned from the driver's hatch toward the screams behind him but couldn't see through the smoke.

Pain seared his shoulder and arm, but the young soldier kept driving - hauling butt away from the ambush as a machine gun spun over his head.

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Fort Irwin soldier recovering in D.C.

Fort Irwin soldier recovering in D.C.
Sgt. Mendoza adjusts to life as a double amputee while trying to maintain a positive attitude
By LISA HART/Staff Writer

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sgt. Manuel Mendoza said he does not even remember volunteering for the mission in Iraq that cost him both of his legs.

"To me it was just like I went to sleep the night before and then woke up here (Walter Reed Army Medical Center)," he said.

Early in October, Mendoza, a 23-year-old from Boonville, and Spc. Kenneth Bower, both members of Fort Irwin's 58th Combat Engineer Company, volunteered for a routine drop-off and pick-up operation in Sadr City, Iraq.

Fort Carson soldier heads back to Iraq after major recovery

Fort Carson soldier heads back to Iraq after major recovery

He was critically wounded in battle, now he's about to become the first soldier amputee in recent history to return to war.

Captain David Rozelle is shipping back over to Iraq with the Third A.C.R. sometime in March. Captain Rozelle lost part of his right leg in a land mine explosion a little over a year agonow, he says the injury has made him stronger than ever and ready to command troops at war.

New Center Offers Renewed Hope for Military Amputees

New Center Offers Renewed Hope for Military Amputees
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, Feb. 4, 2005 — To their grandparents and even their parents, amputation was an ugly word that meant a lifetime of restrictions and dependence.

Army Sgt. Dustin Hill refuses to let the loss of his right hand, fingers on his left hand, his right eye, and most of an ear and his nose keep him from his passion of fishing. Hill and his mother, Liz Kelm, praise the care he is receiving at the amputee care center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Photo by Donna Miles
(Click photo for screen-resolution image); high-resolution image available.

Not so for patients being treated at the amputee care center at Brooke Army Medical Center here. Most see their loss of limbs suffered in Iraq or Afghanistan as temporary setbacks as they strive to return to active lives, and in some cases, to military duty.

Army Sgt. Chris Leverkuhn is a reserve fueler who lost his leg in January 2004 near Fallujah, Iraq, after a homemade bomb and rocket-propelled grenade hit his truck. He admits that when he first saw his injuries, he thought he'd never walk again. Now on his "fourth or fifth" prosthesis, he's built himself up to running two laps around a quarter-mile track and laments that it's his left leg — the one that was saved — that's holding him back as he pushes for longer distances.

Leverkuhn leaves Feb. 9 for a five-day snowboarding trip to Sun Valley, Idaho, and said he's anxious to get back on his dirt bike back home in Lafayette, Ind.

Army Spc. Matthew Houston's left leg was shattered by a .50-caliber machine gun round in November 2003 near Samarra, Iraq. He fought valiantly to save the leg so he could resume his love of hiking, fishing and hunting.

Houston endured 20 surgeries here over the course of 14 months, having his leg pieced together with a titanium spacer and 13 rods and pins, and undergoing grueling physical therapy five days a week. He was well on the road to recovery until infection set in. Unwilling to essentially return to Square 1 of his treatment, he finally agreed to amputation.

Despite his initial resistance, Houston said there was no keeping him down from the moment he received his first prosthetic leg. Within three weeks, he was walking down stairs, and he's now helping to teach other new amputees here how to quickly adapt to their new appendages.

"When I still had my leg on, I didn't know how my future looked," said the 22- year-old military policeman from Fort Hood, Texas. "Now there's nothing I can't do."

Houston said the new prosthesis has given him a new lease on life. He looks forward to returning to his outdoor pursuits and is considering a civilian career in law enforcement. "I'm finally 22 again instead of 80," he said.

Like Houston, Army Sgt. Dustin Hill, a National Guard air defense artilleryman from Galva, Ill., loves the outdoors. His dream is to be able to go fishing before next winter — no simple wish, considering he lost his right hand, fingers on his left hand, his right eye, and most of an ear and his nose when a suicide bomber attacked his patrol outside Baghdad last September.

After three months of treatment at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research's Burn Center here, Hill is now concentrating on the next phase of his recovery at the amputee care center. He just started walking independently, which his mother, Liz Kelm, said gave him "an ear-to-ear grin." Now he's looking forward to receiving a myoelectric robotic prosthesis for his right hand and a new artificial eye he's been promised will match his left one perfectly. It's still unclear if Hill will be able to have another prosthesis attached to his left hand, he said.

Army Col. Robert Grantville, director of amputee services at the amputee care center that opened its doors here Jan. 14, said Leverkuhn, Houston and Hill are pretty typical of the patients receiving treatment.

Most were young, active "tactical athletes" when they deployed to Southwest Asia, and they refuse to allow the loss of a limb to keep them down, he said.

Like the Defense Department's other amputee care center at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center , the center at Brooke offers an extensive array of patient care for amputee patients. This includes orthopedics, physical medicine and rehabilitation, occupational therapy, physical therapy and advanced prosthetics, all designed to help patients return to full activity, Grantville said.

"We use a multidisciplinary approach to treat the person: their physical condition, their emotional and psychological condition, and their spiritual condition," he said. "Everyone involved in these soldiers' care is thinking in terms of holistic care."

Kelm, a licensed practical nurse herself whose son is a recipient of that care, praises the Brooke staff for its outpouring of support for the amputee patients.

"They have the best doctors and nurses, and everyone cares about you here," she said. "They show a level of compassion here that I just haven't seen anywhere else."

But as important as top-notch care is for patients, Grantville said the best therapy is the esprit de corps they share as they struggle together to face and overcome their situations.

"I can empathize with them, but I can't understand how they feel in the same way that another soldier going through this can," Grantville said. "In many ways, they can do as much for each other as we can do for them."

Grantville said how well patients recover from their injuries depends largely on themselves. "What the organization does is 10 to 20 percent. The rest comes from the patient's heart," he said. "All the technology and gee-whiz stuff is great, but it ultimately comes down to spirit."

Houston is the first to agree. He said he works at keeping himself motivated so he can continue to push himself forward. Helping to fuel that motivation is the anticipation of his new daughter, due later this month.

"(Recovery) is all about where the patient wants to go," Houston said. "And I want to be able to be the best dad possible to my daughter. She's my driving force."

Leverkuhn said his tendency "to look for the silver lining" in life is helping him immeasurably as he adapts to life with a prosthetic leg. "The only thing that can hinder me is my mind. A lot of the recovery process has to do with the patient's will," he said. "And the way I look at this is, it changed my body, but it didn't change me as a person."

Related Site:
Brooke Army Medical Center

Wound Registry

from ScienceBlogA new registry being established is helping track casualty information from Iraq and Afghanistan to give senior leaders the concrete information they need as they make decisions about everything from what protective gear troops will use to how to better deliver combat casualty care. The Joint Theater Trauma Registry is ensuring that decision makers have more than anecdotal evidence to guide their decisions that directly affect troops on the ground, explained retired Army Col. L. Harrison Hassell, director of the registry system.

The registry captures details about wounds received and the medical care provided from combat support hospitals, aboard ships and aircraft and throughout the course of their treatment, as well as the results.

This shows medical care providers what treatments were most effective as they apply those lessons learned to other patients with similar wounds, Hassell explained. "A lot of the focus is on life-saving measures at the point of injury," he said. Medical care providers call this the most important stage of the patient's treatment and ultimate recovery.

The data collected in the registry demonstrates the effectiveness of new medical devices and techniques, such as one-armed tourniquets, Hassell said. "You really want to know are you having an impact with a new device you have developed? Is it saving lives?" he said.

The registry also helps medical instructors better tailor their training for the theater, he said.

But the data has longer-term implications as well, Hassell said, helping planners look to the future as they conceive the next-generation combat support hospital and better methods of evacuating patients from the battlefield.

In addition to improving the quality of trauma care, the registry is providing concrete data about a full range of issues of interest to military leaders and decision makers, such as the effectiveness of the new Kevlar helmet and the impact of roadside bombs on the force.

"This is data that affects people fighting right now," Hassell said. "It's helping answer the question, 'What should we do to protect them, and if they are injured, to save them?'"

The Army's Soldier Support Center in Natick, Mass., is studying the data as it strives to improve body armor systems and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is evaluating the amputation data as it works on futuristic limb regeneration concepts.

Monthly reports that summarize the data collected so far have whet the military's collective appetite for more information. "It's like a feeding frenzy," Hassell said. "They all want more."

But providing more information and speeding up its delivery aren't as simple as it might seem. It's a slow, labor-intensive process that involves sorting through files of hand-written notes from weary battlefield healthcare providers, extracting the critical details, translating them into medical codes and entering them into the database.

"It's painfully slow," Hassell acknowledged, emphasizing that until all the data is collected and up-do-date, it offers only a partial view of the big picture.

But in the meantime, the database is providing combat trauma care information never before available, and certainly not while the war was still under way. In the past, medical data from the theater was never collected, and inpatient records were retired to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis as soon as each patient left the hospital.

Hassell said the emerging registry is already beginning to pay off in terms of supporting medical improvements, logistics and operational planning, force modeling, casualty forecasting, training and research and development.

"It's helping ensure that when decision makers or policymakers go forward, they're making decisions based on the best data available," he said.

Soldier welcomed home from Iraq

Soldier welcomed home from Iraq
2/5/2005 12:18 PM
By: News 8 Austin Staff


Spc. Chad Johnson
The Lockhart community welcomed home one of their own Friday at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Spc. Chad Johnson of the 1st Calvary Division was serving in Iraq in September 2004 when his unit was attacked.

He was wounded in the attack and in addition to other injuries, his left leg had to be amputated below the knee.


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Numbers Update (10,000????)

--I do not believe this number is accurate. 10,000 wounded, yes. 10,000 amputees, I don't think so. I have written to the paper and asked for clarification. It *is* a student run newspaper.---

"The Department of Defense saw this collaborative structure as something that would be integral to its mission at this time, said Sothmann — to facilitate the health and well being of returning victims, particularly the more than 10,000 amputees, through research initiatives."

[source]

Healing tissue has a variety of uses

Healing tissue has a variety of uses
By Charise Pettit
Senior Writer

Using a tissue developed by Purdue scientists, an Indiana center is helping heal wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cook Biotech, located in the Purdue Research Park, is offering its Oasis Wound Matrix to the Indiana Center for Rehabilitation Sciences & Engineering Research, which recently received a $1 million grant from the Department of Defense to find better ways to help the minds and bodies of war amputees.

"This is a different (situation) than in the past," said Mark Sothmann, dean of the IU School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences "Had this group been injured in previous wars, (these soldiers) would have been casualties. But with the protective clothing and gear they have now, they are seriously injured with multiple medical conditions that require rehabilitation to integrate them back into society."

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Embracing the Artificial Limb

Embracing the Artificial Limb By Rachel Metz

02:00 AM Feb. 18, 2005 PT

If your vision of the future includes Robocop-like body appendages, several scientists hope to meet you there.

This isn't a silly cyborg fantasy, but what a group of scientists from Brown University, MIT and the Providence VA Medical Center in Providence, Rhode Island, see as the future of artificial limbs -- a project they have funded through the next five years via a $7.2 million research grant and an additional amount to build an advanced rehabilitation facility from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Soldiers Facing Challenge with Courage

Soldiers Facing Challenge with Courage
Feb 17, 2005, 6:58 AM
Rocket propelled grenades, i mprovised explosive devices- t hey've become part of the daily routine in Iraq. It's homemade weapons like those that have made this a war of amputees. S ome of America's heroes are facing a new challenge withincredible courage.

Walter Reed, Army Medical Center, Washington, DC: " I want your arms to swing."

A new leg, a new look,

Lt. Lonnie Moore, amputee: "I thought I was dead."

A new day.

Lt. Lonnie Moore: "I just basically had to go back to being a 1 year old and learn how to walk all over again."

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Triple Amputee Soldier website (Brian Kolfage)

[from the website]
SrA Brian G. Kolfage Jr, 23 years old, stationed at Goodfellow AFB, TX. Brian was born in Dearborn, Michigan and went to high school in Hawai'i on the island of O'ahu. Brian graduated from Kaimuki High which is in the city of Honolulu in 2000. He is currently receiving care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. Brian has been through 16 agonizing surgeries since he was injured on Sept 11, 2004 and Brian had his final surgery three weeks ago on January 18. All Security Forces units from all commands and civil corporations are soliciting donations to help defray expenses being incurred by Brian's family. Brian is saving up to defray the cost of expensive equipment that is not covered by the VA, which will ease his progression back to normal day to day living. Any little bit you are willing to give will be greatly appreciated.


"You never know when it's coming, until its too late. You never think it's going to be you, another statistic, injured or dead? When that mortar hit me I flew about six feet in the air and landed on my back, conscious, with my body parts splattered all around me. You wont think about death. I didn't. I just wanted to go home and be with my wife, Nikki. I wasn't scared, I was angry that it was me and not knowing what was going to happen to me. I was lying on rocks, I took a look around and saw bloody body parts every where, muscle, fat and burnt skin. It made me more furious. Every doctor told me I wasn't supposed live, but I did. I had a collapsed lung, two above knee amputations, right hand amputation, and some internal injuries. when I woke up I had tubes down my throat, through my ribs into my lungs, in my stomach and numerous tubes where my legs were blown off. What doesn't kill me only makes me that much stronger".

Amputee soldiers ski the Catskills

Amputee soldiers ski the Catskills

WINDHAM, N.Y. Ten wounded soldiers are getting a three-day free pass at a ski resort in New York's Catskill Mountains.

The soldiers are up from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Some have lost limbs in grenade attacks or roadside explosions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Learning to live as Iraq war triple amputee

Learning to live as Iraq war triple amputee
By VALERIE BAUERLEIN
Raleigh News & Observer
February 14, 2005

WASHINGTON - Joey Bozik crosses his one arm over his body, rifles his backpack for his pillbox. He flips the compartment with his thumb, throws back his head and pops the morphine pill into his mouth.

His wife does not reach to help him.

She stands behind his wheelchair, ruffling his buzz cut. The silver ring on her left hand, gleaming like a chrome bumper, is identical to the one on his left. The rings are six weeks old but he can wear his only now because the swelling has gone down on his remaining fingers.

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C-Leg offers hope for those missing knee

C-Leg offers hope for those missing knee
By Ed Koch

LAS VEGAS SUN

Alicia Karau is one of 3,500 U.S. residents and 5,000 above-the-knee amputees worldwide who are benefitting from C-Leg technology.

C-Leg, a computer-controlled prostheses made of titanium and carbon, is a product of the Minneapolis-based Otto Bock HealthCare company that has been manufacturing prosthetic devices since it was founded in Germany in 1919.

The C-Leg, introduced in 1999, is described by the company as "a quantum leap" in the improvement of lower limb prosthetics. The "C" stands for computer.

...snip...

The company says, to date, 68 soldiers wounded in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been fitted for C-Legs.

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Amputee heading back to battlefield (Photos)

Amputee heading back to battlefield
Fort Carson captain prepares for redeployment, releases book

By Jim Sheeler, Rocky Mountain News
February 14, 2005

FORT CARSON - Inside the place where there is no camouflage, Capt. David Rozelle sat near the pool, dressed only in a swimsuit. He unsheathed his leg from his prosthetic foot and stared at the stump.

"This is the only place that people can see it," he said, as he sat near the water, rubbing the raw skin and atrophied muscle.


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Healing, with love (photos)

Healing, with love
The Iraq war made Joey Bozik a triple amputee. Hope makes him whole

Joey Bozik and his wife, Jayme, relax in their room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. They were married New Year's Eve, a little more than two months after Bozik, a soldier based at Fort Bragg, lost both legs and his right arm when his Humvee rolled over a bomb in Iraq.
Staff Photo by Ethan Hyman

By VALERIE BAUERLEIN, Washington Correspondent


WASHINGTON -- Joey Bozik crosses his one arm over his body, rifles his backpack for his pillbox. He flips the compartment with his thumb, throws back his head and pops the morphine pill into his mouth.
His wife does not reach to help him.

She stands behind his wheelchair, ruffling his buzz cut. The silver ring on her left hand, gleaming like a chrome bumper, is identical to the one on his left. The rings are six weeks old, but he can wear his only now, just before Valentine's Day, because the swelling has gone down on his remaining fingers.

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Paying the price

Paying the price


Stories by CARY LEIDER VOGRIN THE GAZETTE

Spc. Travis Williams turned from the driver’s hatch toward the screams behind him but couldn’t see through the smoke.

Pain seared his shoulder and arm, but the young soldier kept driving — hauling butt away from the ambush as a machine gun spun over his head.

He floored the “track” — the armored personnel carrier — intent on saving himself and the five other Fort Carson soldiers inside.

“Finally, I looked back again, and the smoke was cleared.”

The interior was red with blood. Three soldiers lay there, each with a leg blown off.

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Military Amputee Seeks Help for Wounded

Military Amputee Seeks Help for Wounded
Amputee Veteran Seeks Self-Financed Disability Insurance for Wounded Soldiers and Their Families
By SAM HANANEL
The Associated Press
Feb. 13, 2005 - Ever since Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly lost his right leg to a roadside bomb near Baghdad more than a year ago, he has been on a mission. It was more than just learning how to walk again on a prosthetic limb or figuring out what to do with his life after 13 months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Kelly, 24, of Prescott, Ariz., saw a need to help other wounded soldiers and their families cope with the financial struggles that come with months of rehabilitation.

In the past month, Kelly and an advocacy group for veterans have persuaded several lawmakers to support the idea of creating a self-financed insurance plan that would award $50,000 to severely disabled soldiers before Veterans Affairs' benefits kick in. The federal money can take a year or more to get to recipients.

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A different battle (2/12/05)

A different battle
War-tested soldier fights to walk again
Saturday, February 12, 2005
By Dori Meinert

Through a Plexiglas window at her feet, she saw the rocket-propelled grenade hurtling toward the Black Hawk helicopter she was flying over Iraq. She heard the explosion when it hit and saw a bright orange fireball erupt at her knees.
As Army National Guard Maj. Ladda Tammy Duckworth struggled to land the damaged helicopter, she began feeling weak. Things seemed to be moving in slow motion. But she didn't know why.

She didn't realize her legs and part of her right arm had been blown away.

Wounded soldier no longer critical

Wounded soldier no longer critical
Family doesn't need donations
By SHERI MCWHIRTER
Record-Eagle staff writer

JOHANNESBURG - A local soldier wounded in Iraq is no longer in critical condition, while donations for his family continue to arrive at their church.
Pfc. Derrick Harden was critically injured Jan. 17 when the Humvee he was in drove over a land mine while responding to an explosion in Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad. All of his limbs and some facial bones were broken and his right leg was later amputated below the knee.

A Hero of the Iraq War: Amputee Returns to Action

HUMAN EVENTS Interview:
A Hero of the Iraq War: Amputee Returns to Action

Posted Feb 11, 2005

Capt. David Rozelle, commander of a U.S. Army cavalry troop, lost his right foot when his Humvee ran over a mine in Hit, Iraq, in 2003.

Fitted with a prosthetic leg, he was swimming, running and skiing before a year was out. Soon he was even competing in triathlons. Restored to command of a cavalry troop, Rozelle will return to Iraq next month, becoming the first battlefield soldier to undergo an amputation and return to the same battlefield.

Rozelle's book, Back in Action: An American Soldier's Story of Courage, Faith, and Fortitude, published by Regnery, a sister company of HUMAN EVENTS, will be out this week. HUMAN EVENTS Editor Terence P. Jeffrey spoke with Rozelle early this month.


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Fort Carson amputee returning to Iraq for second tour of duty (photos)

Fort Carson amputee returning to Iraq for second tour of duty

FORT CARSON - A soldier from Fort Carson is about to do something no other soldier has done in recent history: return to the battlefield as an amputee.

Capt. David Rozelle lost one of his legs in Iraq a little more than a year ago. Now he's ready to be back in action, in charge of 205 troops.

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A long road home

Thursday, February 10, 2005
A long road home
Year in Iraq hard on members of Ohio National Guard - and their families

By Howard Wilkinson
Enquirer staff writer

Kate Uehlin, 8, of Mariemont and friends create signs to celebrate the homecoming of the Ohio National Guard's 216th Engineer Battalion. Her father, Frank, and his unit return from the Iraq war on Friday.

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Injured and invigorated

Injured and invigorated
Capt. David Rozelle will be the first amputee to return to combat in Iraq.
Bret Hartman/Vail Daily

Veronica Whitney
February 9, 2005


VAIL - "I'm gonna ski with two legs today," said Capt. David Rozelle, who lost his right foot fighting in Iraq.

"I'm tired. Too much dancing last night," said the 32-year-old army captain who is heading back to Iraq next month and was in Vail last weekend skiing with other people with disabilities.

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Community rallies for wounded area soldier

February 4, 2005
Community rallies for wounded area soldier
Donations pay for family to be at his side
By SHERI MCWHIRTER
Record-Eagle staff writer


JOHANNESBURG - A local soldier wounded in Iraq remains in critical condition at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., while the community rallies around his family.
More than $6,000 was collected by Johannesburg Christian Church since Pfc. Derrick Harden was seriously wounded while fighting in the war in Iraq. Donations climbed after news reports about his injuries and the cost for his family to travel to him in the military hospital.

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War Wounds

War Wounds
Local Hospital Treats Injured Soldiers

POSTED: 2:33 pm EST February 4, 2005
UPDATED: 2:40 pm EST February 4, 2005

WASHINGTON -- There have been well over 10,000 war casualties since the war in Iraq began.

But the survival rate for those troops is much higher than in any previous conflict.

"I walked out of my tent and walked 20-30 feet and I got hit by a mortar. It dropped out of the sky -- out of no where," said Senior Airman Brian Kolfage.

The 23-year-old remembers almost everything about Sept. 11, 2004. He was in Northern Iraq -- his second tour over there -- when he suddenly came very close to getting killed.

"The mortar landed about five feet away from me. It blew me up in the air. I landed on my back. I was conscious, looking. I didn't know what happened. I looked -- my hands were all bloody and it clicked and I knew I was in trouble," Kolfage said.

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