AMPED

DJ SKELTON: STEPPING STONES

On November 6, 2004, near Fallujah, Iraq, a rocket-propelled grenade struck Army Lieutenant DJ Skelton in the chest. By some fluke, it failed to detonate, instead shattering and sending shrapnel tearing through Skelton’s body. Moments later, rounds from an enemy AK-47 riddled his arms and shattered the radios on his chest, as well as the carabiner Skelton had clipped nostalgically to his vest. He lay on the sand fighting for his life as the battle — part of Operation Phantom Fury — continued around him.

Six months earlier, Iraqi insurgents had captured and killed four private military contractors outside Fallujah, dragging their burned corpses through the streets. Operation Phantom Fury’s mission was to rid the city of insurgents. That morning, at Camp Fallujah, Skelton, then 27, and his men had milled around collecting ammo, readying equipment, and preparing for their first mission into the heart of the city. Skelton, a fi rst lieutenant just two months in country, stole a few moments to write down his thoughts.

“I wrote about the sun rising over the desert,” Skelton says. “I wrote about my soldiers. It was all so beautiful. Life is simple in a combat zone. You wake up, do your job, eat, sleep, and do it all over again.”

Hours later, lying near death in the sand, his only job was to stay alive while his men prepared a medevac. The fight in Fallujah would continue 45 more days and claim 95 American lives, leaving 500 wounded.

For a month after being hit, Skelton was kept in a medically induced coma at Walter Reed. Shrapnel had blown through his right cheek, up through his mouth, and out his left eye. Bullet wounds and shrapnel had shredded his arms, damaging the nerves in the left one. His right shinbones no longer existed, destroyed by the RPG. Doctors would ultimately repair Skelton’s leg, mouth, upper jaw, and cheekbone with titanium plates, rods, bars, and screws.

Six months and 30 surgeries later, Skelton returned to the crags of Washington state (where he previously had been stationed), ready to climb. “The climbing community wouldn’t give up,” says Skelton, now 32.

“The first couple times people asked me to go, I’d say, ‘I can’t do that. I’m injured.’ They’d say, ‘We’ll figure it out.’”

The Elk Point, South Dakota, native had learned to climb on the Black Hills’ spires when he was 7, after a climbing trip with his uncle and cousin. While at the US Military Academy at West Point, Skelton often took weekend trips around New England and the Midwest, frequenting the Gunks, New River Gorge, and the Red River Gorge.

Now, with one partially paralyzed arm, Skelton would have to adapt. With the help of fellow climbers, he soon tackled routes in the Sierras, Joshua Tree, and Indian Creek. “[Other soldiers and friends] were pretty shocked,” Skelton says. “A lot of [the wounded vets] were struggling just to show their faces in public with the scars. In the climbing community, it doesn’t matter. You are who you are.”

Skelton frequently returned to Walter Reed, mentoring fellow soldiers. In February 2007, a vet in his 30s who’d lost both legs in an IED explosion asked Skelton to take him climbing. Skelton told him, “‘Of course.’ But I had no idea how I was going to get this kid with no legs up the wall.” Skelton enlisted the help of the pro climber Timmy O’Neill (TO). Says Skelton, “I essentially called TO out of the blue and was, like, ‘This is me, this is what I want to do, you are the only person I can think of who has a passion and love for this group. Are you in?’ The rest is history.”

O’Neill, whose brother Sean is a paraplegic, flew to Washington, D.C., and he and Skelton arranged for wounded vets to climb at a local gym. “We had no idea what we were doing,” Skelton says. “But we were able to rig systems and work with each vet’s injury to help him up the wall.” That night, ecstatic over their success, O’Neill and Skelton founded Paradox Sports (paradoxsports.org), a nonprofi t devoted to helping the disabled do human-powered sports.

Skelton also became an advisor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on wounded-warrior issues and, after being promoted to captain, returned to the Defense Language Institute in California to command a 175-soldier company specializing in linguistics in their respective fields. In 2009, Skelton returned to D.C. to research posttraumatic growth at the Center for New American Security, still squeezing in as much climbing as possible. “I love connecting the dots and helping people achieve their dreams and goals,” Skelton says. “Everybody has the potential to be whomever they dream to be.”

A while back, Skelton was looking through old writings when he came across something from the seventh grade — a list of goals he’d written down. One of the last ones said, “I want my life to be like a stepping stone.”

“That’s the basis of Paradox Sports,” Skelton says, “a stepping stone.”

Climbing contributor Andrea Sutherland says she’s honored and humbled to have worked with the veterans on this feature.