READY FOR THE WAR:

Amputee Soldier Returns to Changed Iraq (Fox News, March 30, 2005)

The first amputee with a combat command, [Capt. David] Rozelle, of the 3rd Armored Cavalry, arrived in Baghdad just about a week ago. His prosthesis has a patch from his unit and the U.S. flag imprinted on it.

"It's ready for the war," he said.

Rozelle lost his foot in the city of Hit in June 2003 when his Humvee hit a landmine. Now helping to provide security for the citizens of Iraq, it wasn't always easy for him to think about returning.

"At the very beginning, I had a lot of self pity," he said. "I was laying in the Army hospital just outside here, when I first found out that I was going to lose my foot. Of course, I thought I'd given enough," he said.

But Rozelle said that mindset didn't last long.

"I wanted to come back into the job. Coming back to Iraq wasn't really the ultimate goal. Of course, now that I'm here, It's brought things full circle — in other words, it's taken me back to the point where I lost my foot the first time. It's allowed me to start my life again, in Iraq, where I thought it had ended," he said.

Rozelle admits that it hasn't always been easy back in Iraq and he's had to make some adjustments.

"Any time you find yourself in position where you have to walk all the time, as an amputee, that's a challenge in itself because it's much more difficult on your body to do something like walk all day. I try to drive as much as I can," he said.

Rozelle's injury doesn't appear to be fazing the unit he commands. If anything, they're grateful to have him around.

"If anything does go down, it's good to know he has the experience to keep everything in control and not let anything get out of hand," said combat medic Richard Arsenault.

After almost two years away from Iraq, Rozelle said he was surprised to see how much had changed since he'd last been there. He recalled a more uncertain environment, when the insurgency movement seemed to be growing.