AMPED

As Doyne lowers, a boy asks, “Is that a real hook?”

“Sure is,” Doyne says, extending his arm.

“Whoa!” the boy exclaims as his father shuffles him away.

“That used to bother me,” Doyne says. “Not anymore, though.”

Four years have passed since Doyne lost his arm and left eye, along with his close friend Staff Sergeant Dan Gresham. On February 24, 2005, after only 10 days in Iraq, Doyne and Gresham were called to aid a tank patrol hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) near Samarra. At Forward Operating Base Wilson, the lieutenant colonel assembled a reaction force that included Doyne and Gresham.

On scene, as soldiers raced to free the wounded from the tank, Doyne and Gresham turned to each other and hugged. “It was as if we were saying, ‘I’ll see you on the other side,’” Doyne says. Doyne surveyed the ground, looking for loose wires, antennas, detonating cords, and anything else signaling IEDs. Gresham, meanwhile, studied the detonation crater. “I was about eight to 10 yards from Dan when the world I knew went away,” Doyne says. “Nothing but a silence that seemed to last a millennium, or a second. Then the world came crashing back.” Another IED, hidden under the debris, had exploded.

As reality sunk in, so did the shock. “All I could think is, ‘I gotta get moving. If I don’t, I’m going to die,’” Doyne says. “But I couldn’t get up. My legs were either shattered or gone. My combat vest was shredded, and I couldn’t see out of my left eye. I looked at my left arm and saw . . . two bloody bones sticking out of a scorched, shredded sleeve, my arm hanging down by a strip of skin. Then I thought about Dan.”

Gresham died instantly, though Doyne wouldn’t learn this till later. Three days, one emergency surgery, and an 18-hour blood transfusion later, Doyne arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, D.C. His wounds included a fractured right ankle, shattered tibias and fi bulas, collapsed left lung, shrapnel wounds to the arms and face, a slashed throat, two shattered ear drums, a skull fracture, and the loss of his left eye and arm. For the next 11 months, Doyne underwent more than 60 surgeries and countless hours of painful physical therapy. He took his first steps four months after the explosion, a good five months ahead of schedule.

When, at month three, Doyne received his first prosthetic arm, he pushed through the frustrating exercises, viewing them as a practice in endurance and self-control. At home, Doyne did his best to adjust to civilian life. When the Army wouldn’t allow him to return to combat, he turned to philosophy, writing, and climbing.

“As good a job as all the King’s horses and all the King’s men did putting this Humpty Dumpty back together again, I will never be quite as I was,” Doyne says. Four years later, he still struggles. “Sometimes I’m overcome by sadness when I look at what’s left of my arm,” he says. “I look at my face and remember . . . before it got pockmarked with shrapnel wounds and burns.”

Climbing provided a necessary release as Doyne recovered. “Climbing is the only time I have to be myself,” he says. “Everywhere else, people see the wounded veteran and the soldier amputee. When I’m climbing, I’m just another guy looking to send.”

Having climbed only a few times prior to his injuries, Doyne’s first outing, at Sport-Rock, was only mildly successful. But with the help of gym employees Garrick Mercer and Jason Montecalvo, Doyne perfected his technique, even learning to dyno and “shock-load” his prosthetic. “At first, climbing was a way to stay in shape,” Doyne says. “It was the only activity that didn’t hurt in intense ways. But as I climbed, it became a coping method.” Doyne has since traveled the country, frequenting Looking Glass, the New River Gorge, and Seneca Rock.

In 2006, as a therapeutic measure, Doyne got another tattoo: this grim reaper extends the length of his right calf and holds an hourglass instead of a scythe. For Doyne, the hourglass represents the finite amount of time in this life and a reminder that death comes for us all. At the reaper’s feet stands a small stick figure giving Death a defiant middle finger, its left arm on the ground.