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"Why should I be depressed?" Srisourath said."There's no reason to be depressed. Stuff happens. It's theway life is."

Tiny pieces of  bearing glass

Srisourath, the son of Laotian immigrants (his father, Bo, workedwith U.S. troops in Vietnam) once considered making a career of theArmy. That changed the morning of Nov. 18, 2006, when he and hisplatoon, stationed near Fallujah, headed out on patrol.

As Srisourath, driving a Bradley fighting vehicle, peered throughhis periscope, he heard "this huge explosion."

The Bradley had hit an improvised explosive device. The blast blewhis knees into his chest and his head into the metal hatch,knocking him out. When he regained consciousness, he saw a"big old hole underneath me.

"Holy crap!" he said to himself. "I just got blownup."

He grabbed his gun and tried to stand, then felt excruciating painin his left heel. He was rushed to Camp Fallujah, where doctors cutoff his boot and confirmed the worst -- most of the heel was gone.

"It was just complete powder," Srisourath said. "Mywhole heel shattered into tiny pieces like glass and shoved up intomy ankle."

Srisourath was sent to military hospitals in Germany and then SanAntonio, undergoing more than a dozen surgeries to save the foot.

At one point, he had so many bolts and staples that his foot"looked like a hardware store," he said.

Setbacks and pain were constant.

Once, when stitches broke, the heel got so badly infected that ittook five months to heal. Then his body rejected the pins placedinside the foot, and he was hospitalized another four months totreat a new infection.

"It just hurt to breathe," he said. "A couple oftimes I really wanted to chop my foot off because the pain was sobad."

In July 2007, eight months after the blast, Srisourath finally gotthe OK to try walking. After so many months in a bed or wheelchair,he was ecstatic.

"I felt so tall," he said.

Within weeks, he progressed from crutches to a cane. By autumn, hewas moving well enough that he could drive. The progress gave himhope that his mobility would improve and the pain subside. So far,neither has happened.