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Created by and for survivors, LSN empowers individuals and communities affected by landmines to recover from trauma, reclaim their lives and fulfill their rights.
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World Landmine News
Amputee Soldiers On - CBS News
(CBS) CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports David Rozelle has become the \"poster boy\" for the American soldier - not because he\'s going back to Iraq, but because of what he\'s going back, without.
\"You\'re not the only one?\" asked Cowan.
\"I\'m not the only one, but I am the first,\" said the U.S. Army captain.
He is the first amputee not only to be deemed fit for combat - but the first to be given a combat command in Iraq.
\"Why should I stay back in safety when my brothers in arms who are also fit for duty, are having to go fight?\" he asked.
His foot was blown off when his Humvee hit a landmine outside Baghdad.
When Cowan first met him his goal was simple -- prove he could soldier again.
He tried to run before he could even walk -- a hint of his determination.
\"You know, I\'ve given one foot, and I\'m ready to go back and give another,\" he said before.
And nothing has changed in a year and a half.
\"I still am. I\'m still willing to give my whole body if I have to, because I believe in it,\" Rozelle told Cowan.
He learned to walk faster than most amputees.
Then it was biking, then hiking.
Then running. He entered and finished the New York City Marathon.
All with his wife at his side.
\"He has not changed, and that was one of the things I tried to make sure of in his healing that he did not change and become a bitter depressed soul,\" Kim Rozelle said.
When he took Cowan skiing he reminded us that all this fun, had a serious purpose.
\"I got business to take care of. There\'s a war to win!\"
His journey back to health became a book -- which is so popular it\'s already in its second printing.
He\'s been invited to teach at West Point -- and to counsel at Walter Reed Hospital.
But he\'s put all of it off, until he marches home from war -- again.
The man with that eternal sense of optimism, the one with such determination to return to duty, is under no illusions that he still must pass the toughest test of all.\"
\"It\'s very sobering, and very real for me to think that I may go back and be severely injured again,\" Rozelle said.
\"Everyday that we get up that means it\'s closer to him leaving, and we\'re both just like last time, you get nervous,\" said his wife.
Nerves that have been tested once -- back at attention again.
Posted: Thursday, March 3, 2005
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