But he was walking that day, so when a buried 82mm mortar exploded three feet in front of him, it blew open his left arm, shattered his thumbs, peppered his legs and right arm with shrapnel, and ruptured one of his testicles.

"I'm dazed and I have no idea how badly I'm injured," said Cpt Ziegenfuss, now 33, describing the explosion nearly a year later.

"I remember looking at my hands and thinking, 'That's going to hurt later'."

Within four days, Cpt Ziegenfuss had passed through US military hospitals in Balad, Iraq, and Landstuhl, Germany, to arrive at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.

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