Adam Kisielewski shouldn’t be alive. From the instant he passed through an explosives-rigged door in Iraq on Aug. 21, 2005, Adam has been living his second life, the one given to him by his own fighting spirit and the wonders of modern battlefield medicine.

It was only a month and two days after Adam’s deployment to Iraq began when his squad was given the assignment of clearing a school of suspected insurgents. The blast cost Adam his left arm at the shoulder and his right leg below his knee, and it cost the life of his fellow Marine, Lieutenant James “Cat” Cathey, mortally wounded as the two men were on a room to room search. The actions of his squad, an immediate evacuation in a Humvee to a field hospital, and the superior emergency care he received gave him the opportunity to live. From Iraq he was airlifted to Germany, and then, in five days, Adam was at Bethesda Naval Hospital for seven weeks, and then Walter Reed for 11 months of intense rehabilitation for his catastrophic injuries.

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