thedrifter
05-08-06, 01:13 PM
Iraq war veteran settles into 'normal' life
5/8/2006 6:37:35 AM
Daily Journal
By ROBBIE WARD
Daily Journal Starkville Bureau
STARKVILLE - Lance Cpl. Aaron Rice started with two legs. Now he has six and another on the way.
Rice, 22, a Mississippi State University student and Marine Corps veteran, considers his life normal again after a short stint in Iraq, but the definition of normal has changed for the guy who lost his left leg.
Rice, of Sumrall, returned to MSU in the fall and was elected attorney general for the MSU Student Association. He continues to enjoy the married student life; he wed Kelly Maxwell on Nov. 20, 2004, shortly before he was deployed.
Spending time with his wife at the library is quite a difference from staying at military hospitals and undergoing physical therapy. Now, Rice sometimes forgets he uses a prosthetic leg.
"I never thought I'd get to this point," Rice said recently, sitting in his apartment. "I'll walk around campus sometimes and forget I have an amputated leg."
Land mine
Rice, who was attached to the Ohio-based 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, was inside a Humvee on March 18, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq, when the Marines were ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. The Humvee rolled over an antitank land mine and exploded.
That's when things became surreal for Rice; he felt pain all over.
"I looked at my leg and saw it jackknifed up," Rice said. "I remember looking at it and thinking it's gone."
But the Marine put a positive spin on the situation. "I wondered what my new leg was going to look like," he said.
After multiple operations and stints in different military hospitals, including the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Rice knows what his new legs look like. He started wearing them for an entire day on Aug. 1.
While at Walter Reed, he decided to sign up for a 10-mile race, although he'd never run that far before.
Kelly had planned to run the race with her husband, holding his spare leg. When a physical therapist volunteered to carry the leg, Kelly still ran.
"I just started thinking if my amputee husband can run the race, I have no excuse," she said, who had never run that distance before either.
While running the race, Rice passed other amputees and people with two legs. Because of changes in the course, the course was longer than 11 miles. Rice finished the race, running a less than 11-minute-mile pace.
"I just wanted to prove to my friends and family that I was going to be all right," he said.
Not ashamed
When he wears pants, most people don't notice anything different about his legs. But, Rice isn't ashamed to wear shorts, showing his prosthetic leg. Each of his prostheses has a Marine Corps emblem on it.
"It's always been important to me to put something I'm proud of on the leg," he said, showing the Purple Heart sticker on his running prosthesis.
Along with a prosthetic leg for running, he has three for routine activities and another for swimming. He's getting another running prosthesis in about a month because his current running prosthesis no longer fits.
When he gets the new leg, he already has running plans - with MSU President Robert "Doc" Foglesong, an avid runner and 12-time marathoner.
"As soon as I get my new running leg, we'll do it," Rice said.
As for the future, the political science major is expected to graduate in May 2008, while his wife should finish in December with a degree in public relations. Rice, who worked on Gov. Haley Barbour's gubernatorial campaign, said he would like to find a job in politics after graduation.
"I'm not happy with what I'm doing unless I know it is contributing to something larger than myself," he said.
Contact Robbie Ward at 323-9831 or robbie.ward@djournal.com
Appeared originally in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 5/8/2006 8:00:00 AM, section A , page 1
Ellie
5/8/2006 6:37:35 AM
Daily Journal
By ROBBIE WARD
Daily Journal Starkville Bureau
STARKVILLE - Lance Cpl. Aaron Rice started with two legs. Now he has six and another on the way.
Rice, 22, a Mississippi State University student and Marine Corps veteran, considers his life normal again after a short stint in Iraq, but the definition of normal has changed for the guy who lost his left leg.
Rice, of Sumrall, returned to MSU in the fall and was elected attorney general for the MSU Student Association. He continues to enjoy the married student life; he wed Kelly Maxwell on Nov. 20, 2004, shortly before he was deployed.
Spending time with his wife at the library is quite a difference from staying at military hospitals and undergoing physical therapy. Now, Rice sometimes forgets he uses a prosthetic leg.
"I never thought I'd get to this point," Rice said recently, sitting in his apartment. "I'll walk around campus sometimes and forget I have an amputated leg."
Land mine
Rice, who was attached to the Ohio-based 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, was inside a Humvee on March 18, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq, when the Marines were ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. The Humvee rolled over an antitank land mine and exploded.
That's when things became surreal for Rice; he felt pain all over.
"I looked at my leg and saw it jackknifed up," Rice said. "I remember looking at it and thinking it's gone."
But the Marine put a positive spin on the situation. "I wondered what my new leg was going to look like," he said.
After multiple operations and stints in different military hospitals, including the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Rice knows what his new legs look like. He started wearing them for an entire day on Aug. 1.
While at Walter Reed, he decided to sign up for a 10-mile race, although he'd never run that far before.
Kelly had planned to run the race with her husband, holding his spare leg. When a physical therapist volunteered to carry the leg, Kelly still ran.
"I just started thinking if my amputee husband can run the race, I have no excuse," she said, who had never run that distance before either.
While running the race, Rice passed other amputees and people with two legs. Because of changes in the course, the course was longer than 11 miles. Rice finished the race, running a less than 11-minute-mile pace.
"I just wanted to prove to my friends and family that I was going to be all right," he said.
Not ashamed
When he wears pants, most people don't notice anything different about his legs. But, Rice isn't ashamed to wear shorts, showing his prosthetic leg. Each of his prostheses has a Marine Corps emblem on it.
"It's always been important to me to put something I'm proud of on the leg," he said, showing the Purple Heart sticker on his running prosthesis.
Along with a prosthetic leg for running, he has three for routine activities and another for swimming. He's getting another running prosthesis in about a month because his current running prosthesis no longer fits.
When he gets the new leg, he already has running plans - with MSU President Robert "Doc" Foglesong, an avid runner and 12-time marathoner.
"As soon as I get my new running leg, we'll do it," Rice said.
As for the future, the political science major is expected to graduate in May 2008, while his wife should finish in December with a degree in public relations. Rice, who worked on Gov. Haley Barbour's gubernatorial campaign, said he would like to find a job in politics after graduation.
"I'm not happy with what I'm doing unless I know it is contributing to something larger than myself," he said.
Contact Robbie Ward at 323-9831 or robbie.ward@djournal.com
Appeared originally in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 5/8/2006 8:00:00 AM, section A , page 1
Ellie