thedrifter
06-02-09, 06:36 AM
Wounded warriors tackle Mount McKinley
By Mary Pemberton - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jun 2, 2009 6:05:33 EDT
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A roadside bomb in Iraq tore through Marc Hoffmeister’s left arm, leaving the soldier with more titanium than bone once reconstruction was done.
No problem, said Hoffmeister, an Army lieutenant colonel who came up with the idea for Operation Denali 2009 where a team of soldiers injured in Iraq would scale North America’s tallest mountain.
“I have nothing to complain about in my book,” Hoffmeister said Monday, as he and his fellow soldiers prepared to start climbing 20,320-foot Mount McKinley in Alaska. “Pessimism is what defeats people, no matter what the obstacle.”
Hoffmeister’s team of six climbers and three guides includes Matt Nyman who lost his right leg in a helicopter crash in Iraq in 2005, David Shebib who almost died when a roadside bomb exploded in his face in 2006 and Jon Kunihol who lost his right arm in a rocket attack in 2005.
“In our team it is who is carrying the extra leg? Who is carrying the extra arm?” Hoffmeister said while waiting at the Talkeetna Ranger Station with the others to be flown to the mountain’s base camp. From there, the team is expected to take about three weeks to climb 13,000 vertical feet to the summit — the greatest elevation gain of any mountain in the world.
Reaching the top is not the point, said Hoffmeister, a 39-year-old West Point graduate now stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage. The point of the climb is to send a message to the other wounded warriors still struggling with their injuries, fearful of the future, he said.
“I realized I had to go beyond those fears and pursue my dreams regardless,” Hoffmeister said. “If I had self doubts I was sure there were other soldiers out there with similar feelings.”
Hoffmeister said since he has no feeling in half of his left hand, he will watch for any signs of frostbite during the climb.
“There are areas that could freeze and I wouldn’t know it,” he said.
Of less concern to him is the partial grip he has in his left hand.
“I have the most use of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger. They work fine, enough to do what I need to do,” he said.
Before Kuniholm lost his arm in a rocket attack in Iraq in on New Year’s Day in 2005, the 37-year-old retired Marine from Durham, N.C., liked long distance running and piloting an airplane.
After he lost his arm, the most basic things became a problem, whether it was tying his shoes or writing his own name. Kuniholm said he realized over time that if he was patient enough he could get things done. What he wanted, however, was a better prosthetic arm.
He worked with the DARPA Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 program at Johns Hopkins University to come up with a prosthetic arm suitable for scaling McKinley.
It’s a “bizarre twist of fate” where a disability takes you where you probably would not have gone before, he said.
“Having a disability is some ways is very limiting but it doesn’t have to be,” he said.
Kuniholm hopes that the climb “will make any challenge seem possible” for those injured soldiers who are still struggling and questioning what their futures hold.
Shebib, a 25-year-old Army specialist from San Jose, Calif., was expected to die when a roadside bomb exploded in his face in Iraq.
“It cut my carotid artery. I had a couple of teeth knocked out, a hole in my ear drum, broke my collar bone and my finger. I have a scar on my retina. I am currently going through facial plastic surgery,” said the soldier stationed at Fort Richardson in Anchorage.
Doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center thought Shebib’s left side would be paralyzed from a stroke caused by his injuries. Shebib, however, made a remarkable recovery.
When he was released from the hospital, he thought he would take on whatever life threw at him. When he heard about Operation Denali, he signed right up. He prepared for McKinley by climbing every other day in the Chugach Mountains near Anchorage with an 80-pound pack on his back.
“I had a bomb go off in my face,” Shebib said. “It is not the end of the road when you are injured.”
Ellie
By Mary Pemberton - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jun 2, 2009 6:05:33 EDT
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A roadside bomb in Iraq tore through Marc Hoffmeister’s left arm, leaving the soldier with more titanium than bone once reconstruction was done.
No problem, said Hoffmeister, an Army lieutenant colonel who came up with the idea for Operation Denali 2009 where a team of soldiers injured in Iraq would scale North America’s tallest mountain.
“I have nothing to complain about in my book,” Hoffmeister said Monday, as he and his fellow soldiers prepared to start climbing 20,320-foot Mount McKinley in Alaska. “Pessimism is what defeats people, no matter what the obstacle.”
Hoffmeister’s team of six climbers and three guides includes Matt Nyman who lost his right leg in a helicopter crash in Iraq in 2005, David Shebib who almost died when a roadside bomb exploded in his face in 2006 and Jon Kunihol who lost his right arm in a rocket attack in 2005.
“In our team it is who is carrying the extra leg? Who is carrying the extra arm?” Hoffmeister said while waiting at the Talkeetna Ranger Station with the others to be flown to the mountain’s base camp. From there, the team is expected to take about three weeks to climb 13,000 vertical feet to the summit — the greatest elevation gain of any mountain in the world.
Reaching the top is not the point, said Hoffmeister, a 39-year-old West Point graduate now stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage. The point of the climb is to send a message to the other wounded warriors still struggling with their injuries, fearful of the future, he said.
“I realized I had to go beyond those fears and pursue my dreams regardless,” Hoffmeister said. “If I had self doubts I was sure there were other soldiers out there with similar feelings.”
Hoffmeister said since he has no feeling in half of his left hand, he will watch for any signs of frostbite during the climb.
“There are areas that could freeze and I wouldn’t know it,” he said.
Of less concern to him is the partial grip he has in his left hand.
“I have the most use of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger. They work fine, enough to do what I need to do,” he said.
Before Kuniholm lost his arm in a rocket attack in Iraq in on New Year’s Day in 2005, the 37-year-old retired Marine from Durham, N.C., liked long distance running and piloting an airplane.
After he lost his arm, the most basic things became a problem, whether it was tying his shoes or writing his own name. Kuniholm said he realized over time that if he was patient enough he could get things done. What he wanted, however, was a better prosthetic arm.
He worked with the DARPA Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 program at Johns Hopkins University to come up with a prosthetic arm suitable for scaling McKinley.
It’s a “bizarre twist of fate” where a disability takes you where you probably would not have gone before, he said.
“Having a disability is some ways is very limiting but it doesn’t have to be,” he said.
Kuniholm hopes that the climb “will make any challenge seem possible” for those injured soldiers who are still struggling and questioning what their futures hold.
Shebib, a 25-year-old Army specialist from San Jose, Calif., was expected to die when a roadside bomb exploded in his face in Iraq.
“It cut my carotid artery. I had a couple of teeth knocked out, a hole in my ear drum, broke my collar bone and my finger. I have a scar on my retina. I am currently going through facial plastic surgery,” said the soldier stationed at Fort Richardson in Anchorage.
Doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center thought Shebib’s left side would be paralyzed from a stroke caused by his injuries. Shebib, however, made a remarkable recovery.
When he was released from the hospital, he thought he would take on whatever life threw at him. When he heard about Operation Denali, he signed right up. He prepared for McKinley by climbing every other day in the Chugach Mountains near Anchorage with an 80-pound pack on his back.
“I had a bomb go off in my face,” Shebib said. “It is not the end of the road when you are injured.”
Ellie