It is perhaps the combat injury most feared by servicemen who have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: a blast that robs them of their genitals.

For one such wounded warrior, a real shot at renewed sexual health and happiness has come with a transplanted penis, scrotum and lower abdominal wall. The transplant, which also included many of the nerves, muscles and blood vessels that serve those organs, is described in Thursday’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.