Wounded warrior: Brendan Marrocco lost all four of his limbs in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq last year. Now he's fighting to rebuild his life.

• Author: Alvarez, Lizette
• Position: NATIONAL

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Brendan Marrocco clutched a pen in his oversize rubber hand and wrote out a list of things to do: A trip to Annapolis, Maryland. A boat ride. And seeing the Washington Nationals play his favorite team, the New York Yankees.

Each would be a major accomplishment for Marrocco, who a year and a half ago came so close to death that doctors still marvel over how he dodged it. At 22, he was an infantryman in the United States Army. Then, on Easter Sunday 2009, a roadside bomb exploded under his vehicle, and he became the first veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to lose all four limbs in combat and survive.

Since then, Marrocco has pushed past pain and exhaustion to learn to use his four prosthetics, though he can walk for only 15 minutes at a time. He has endured 14 operations (but he refuses to allow a dentist to replace the eight teeth he lost in the blast). He has met sports stars like Yankee catcher Jorge Posada and Tiger Woods--and become something of a star himself at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where his determination and humor are an inspiration to hundreds of other wounded soldiers.

More than 1,400 service members have lost limbs, hands, feet, toes, or fingers in combat since the first of the wars, in Afghanistan, began in 2001. But the extent of Marrocco's injuries raised so many questions. Would he crumble mentally? Was his brain intact? How would he eat, bathe, or even get out of bed and dress himself?

Fourteen operations later, Marrocco "has exceeded the expectations of everyone but himself" says Benjamin Kyle Potter, the orthopedic surgeon who has treated him since he arrived at Walter Reed last year. Marrocco can already write legibly, use a computer (but not play video games), and text furiously.

Enlisting in the Army

Growing up on Staten Island, N.Y., Brendan had been smart and outgoing, but college didn't work out, so he enlisted in the Army. When he got to Fort Benning, Georgia, in January 2008 for basic training, he felt grounded for the first time in his life.

He arrived in Iraq on Halloween 2008, eager to fight. But after several years of terrible violence, the situation had stabilized, and his days were spent mostly on patrol, conducting occasional raids, and lifting weights at the base's makeshift gym.

"You kept the danger in the back of your mind" he says. "You didn't want it to happen, but you had to train for it."

It is difficult, though, to train for hidden bombs, which is one reason why the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are so treacherous.

Not quite six months into his combat tour, Brendan sat behind the wheel of an armored vehicle in Baiji, a town in northern Iraq. His was the last truck in a four-vehicle convoy on a routine mission.

The bomb shredded his armored vehicle. His best Army buddy was killed. Another soldier was wounded; the fourth man in the truck walked away unharmed.

Jayson Aydelotte, the trauma surgeon on duty, got the call before dawn: incoming...