“Thanks to Wounded Warrior Project, I knew no matter what I needed, all I had to do was make a phone call.”
Jeffrey Adams
Jeffrey Adams joined the Army National Guard in 1998, and after the events that occurred on 9/11, he knew he would eventually be sent to war. He deployed to Iraq in 2004 as a platoon leader in southern Baghdad. To protect themselves, Jeffrey’s unit used a bulldozer to smooth out the dirt on both sides of the road when they arrived in Iraq so they would know if something was out of place. On November 7, 2004, they saw something strange.
“We saw something off to the side that looked like a road wheel from a tank, and we reacted to it as if it were an improvised explosive device (IED),” says Jeffrey. “We were more than 300 meters away from it when I suddenly found myself sitting on the ground, missing a leg.”
The enemy had used the distant object as a decoy, blowing up another IED about 10 feet from Jeffrey’s location. Because the blast removed 96% of his leg, learning to walk on a prosthetic proved extremely difficult.
“Think about it this way: If you’re holding a broom in the middle, you have good leverage,” says Jeffrey. “Essentially, what I’m doing is grabbing the broom handle at the very end. I have a lot less residual limb to be able to put in a socket, so it gives me a lot less leverage and maneuverability. So recovery was frustrating because I wasn’t able to move and bounce around as quick as everybody else.”
In the midst of Jeffrey’s early recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) staff members came to visit with a backpack full of comfort items. As they got to know him and realized he loved the outdoors, they began offering him opportunities to get out of the hospital and be active again, despite his amputation.
“They said, ‘Hey, we’re going to take you skiing,’” remembers Jeffrey. “I said, ‘You want to take a one legged boy from South Louisiana up on a bunch of white garbage and teach me how to snow ski? I don’t know what drugs you’re on, but they’re a lot better than the drugs I have right now.’ Long story short, two weeks later, I was snow skiing in Windham, New York with the Adaptive Sports Foundation. Then a year later, I got certified as a ski instructor to teach other wounded vets how to ski.”
Jeffrey’s experiences with WWP helped cement the mindset he still has today — “just keep moving forward.” He dedicated himself to returning to school to finish his degree, which he used to land a great job testing flight equipment for the U.S. Army. Now, he’s a loving husband and father to three young children, yet still finds time to be there for his fellow warriors.
“As far as I’m concerned, the goal was, is, and always will be to just have a standard, average life like everybody else,” says Jeffrey. “The injury is a part of me, just as anybody else may have a scar. That’s all the leg is. It doesn’t define who I am. My goals are the same as they’ve always been, and ideally, the same as the goals of every other American.”