D.J. Skelton

Army Captain, 2nd Cavalry Regiment

For a second there, D. J. Skelton felt like he was floating. And then came the sound of a soldier asking if he was alive. Skelton tried to scream. But nothing came out. Then ... blinding pain.

The RPG ambush in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, destroyed Skelton's entire upper jaw, palate, and left eye. His left arm was pulverized and a fist-sized hole was punched through his right leg. It would take sixty surgeries and six years for Skelton to fully recover, during which he worked for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and cofounded a disable-bodied sports organization, Paradox Sports. But one thing he knew soon after he awoke in the hospital: He wanted to return to his men.

In March, Skelton took command of 150 infantrymen, armor soldiers, and fire-support soldiers of the 2nd Cavalry during their one-year tour in Afghanistan. Although he can't see out of his left eye and eats with a prosthesis, the soldiers see him as nothing other than what he is — Captain Skelton, head of the company. He is the most seriously injured active-duty soldier. And he is exactly where he belongs, leading his soldiers. —Mark Mikin