LaGrange soldier who lost arm returns as Army officer

In the family room of the Ingram residence in LaGrange, a framed piece of paper with a second-grader’s handwriting says this:

“I think Richard is very courageous for being in the war in Iraq. His mother works at my school. He lost his arm in an explosion. He went to a hospital in the United States. He had to have an artificial arm and use it. I want to be like him when I grow up.”

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CURTIS COMPTON/ccompton@ajc.com

Lt. Richard Ingram watches his dog Cooper jump into the bed of his pickup truck at a local pet groomer in LaGrange on Wednesday. Ingram lost an arm in a roadside bombing in Iraq.

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Walt Young/Special

Ingram lost his left arm while serving in Iraq but didn’t let it stop him from becoming an officer in the Army.

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Since that July day in 2005 when he lost his arm in a roadside bombing, Richard Ingram’s only goal has been to chase a lifelong dream of being the finest warrior he can be.

Last month, Ingram became the first severely wounded soldier from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to go on to become an officer. The freshly minted lieutenant, once an enlisted scout in the National Guard, leaves for Fort Benning on Jan. 11 for training that will prepare him to lead soldiers in battle — possibly in Afghanistan.

“I might have to try a little bit harder than everyone else, but I get the same results,” he said. “I’m in better shape now than when I had two arms.”

In breaking new ground, Ingram, 25, serves as a role model not only for that 7-year-old boy who wrote an essay on courage at LaGrange Academy but for all the nation’s disabled veterans, especially amputees.

But don’t try to talk about inspiration with Ingram. He despises the spotlight and remains unfazed by his influence on others.

“All I want to do is lead soldiers,” he said.

The Army’s Human Resources Command said 3,722 men and women belong to the Wounded Warrior Program, soldiers classified as severely wounded with at least a 30 percent disability. They include those who have lost a limb, suffer from traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, paralysis, permanent disfigurement, severe burns or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Spokesman Lt. Col. Richard McNorton says 113 soldiers in the Wounded Warrior Program continued in the military, either as active duty or reserve. A majority opt for medical retirement, as Ingram did. But he was the first to restart a career as an officer.

Col. Michael Pyott, a military science professor at North Georgia College & State University, where Ingram studied finance and completed the ROTC program, said Ingram was a trailblazer.

“We’d never seen such a case before. Everyone recognized it was special.”

Pyott said it took a lot of legal wrangling to figure out how to let a disabled Army specialist earn his commission.

But, Pyott said, if anyone was worth the red tape, it was Ingram.

Ingram proved to the Army that he is physically able to lead a platoon.

With the help of a suction-cup attachment on his high-tech prosthetic arm, Ingram can do 70 push-ups in two minutes, 30 more than required in the Army’s basic physical fitness test. He can compete in obstacle courses and races with the Army’s fittest. His weakness surfaces only in tests that require both arms to pull the body upward, like rope climbing.

Ingram likens his life to a long, grueling infantry road march. You carry a heavy load, your feet ache, your hands swell up — and all you think about is the next step.

“There’s no point in living if you’re not living your life,” he said. “I’m just glad to be alive.”

Those were the same words Ingram uttered to Staff Sgt. Joe Brown while the two shared a room in a Baghdad hospital more than three years ago.

Brown was on patrol with Ingram in Yusufiyah, a restive town south of Baghdad, when their Humvee hit a hidden bomb. The heavily armored vehicle lifted 10 feet in the air, rolled over and smashed Ingram’s left arm. Brown suffered a broken jaw, broken ribs, bruises and lacerations.

Brown cried when he learned Ingram had lost his arm. But when he heard Ingram say he was just thankful to be alive, Brown knew he would be fine.

“I haven’t worried about him since,” Brown said.

Not that he ever worried much about Ingram, so physically fit and mentally driven that push-ups were a pleasure, not punishment. It was harder for Ingram to sit and stare at something for five minutes straight. So that’s how Brown disciplined him.

Ingram joined the Georgia Army National Guard in 2002, the same year he enrolled at North Georgia. When the 48th Infantry Brigade was called to Iraq in 2005, Ingram had to put school on hold and head off to war.

After the injury, he spent several months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was determined not to be one of those guys who turned to booze and pills to get through the trauma — or dwell on the stereotypes of people with disabilities. When little things like buttoning his shirt frustrated him, he kept his eye on his goals.

This is where the rubber meets the road, he told himself. You’ve hit an obstacle. Now take the challenge and run with it.

That’s how he was as a child — a risk-taker, a kid who never accepted anything just because someone said it was so.

His mother, Janice Ingram, recalls how she came home one day to see her 11-year-old son climbing down a ladder from the second floor of the house. It was his way of testing the family’s fire-escape plan.

Ingram knew he would be OK if he could just make it through the initial mental struggle of accepting life without an arm.

“If all you do is sit around, you have too much time to think,” he said. “So I try to occupy myself every minute I’m awake.”

The week after his injury, Ingram was on an elliptical machine at Walter Reed. Within months, he was competing in triathlons. He learned how to swim using his entire body to bolster the power of just one arm.

He still wasn’t sure he’d ever be a frontline soldier again, though he was certain he didn’t want to remain in the Army in a desk job, as other amputees have done. So he accepted retirement on medical grounds and resumed college classes in Dahlonega.

“I didn’t want to be the guy who pushes papers. To tell you the truth, I can’t even fold papers that well,” he said, referring to the prosthetic arm that helps him maneuver through life these days. “But I can shoot a rifle.”

Pyott, the military science professor, said Ingram’s is a story of sheer perseverance.

“It took him seven years to get a college degree through a deployment, a severe injury. That says a lot about Richard as an individual.”

Somewhere along the way, Ingram realized he was meant to be a soldier. On Dec. 13, he took the oath of office as a second lieutenant. He will eventually lead an engineer platoon in the 10th Mountain Division and likely see war again in Afghanistan.

Before that, he wants to complete Airborne school and Ranger school, the toughest endurance and fitness course in the Army.

For an amputee to master either course is “almost an insurmountable challenge,” said Fort Benning spokeswoman Elsie Jackson.

But as his friends and family already know, if anyone is up for the impossible, it’s Richard Ingram.