In honor of Veteran’s Day this year, Riverdale invited Steve Martin, a former US Army corporal and Arizona National Guard veteran who served in Afghanistan, to speak in an assembly about his challenges and resilience as a double-amputee. Martin was severely injured by an explosive in 2008 while on duty in Afghanistan, and soon after took a risk to have both of his legs amputated. Against all odds, this great challenge did not slow Martin down; in fact, it sped him up. Three months after the amputation, he ran his first 5K. Since then, he has run over 50 marathons.
Martin comes from a family where everybody serves, and in 1990, he joined the Army. When he came back home to Arizona afterwards, he worked for the Phoenix Police Department for three years before becoming an Arizona State Trooper. During his years as a State Trooper, Martin was also in the Arizona National Guard, and in 2008 he went to Afghanistan as a State Department contractor. On September 24, 2008, Martin’s Humvee drove over an improvised explosive device, and though everybody in the Humvee survived, Martin was severely injured and briefly captured before being recovered by his team. All he remembers after the explosion was leaving Afghanistan on a stretcher.
Upon returning home, Martin was in extreme pain, out of which he made a very tough decision. “I had a life full of medicine and pain,” he said, “so I decided to have my legs amputated.” Such a bold choice has certainly served him well. “I didn’t know what to expect. I just knew what I had. So I was throwing my hope and my faith that the prosthetics would get me where I needed to be, and it did. My life just kept getting better and better and better.”
The experience for Martin of losing his legs thrust his life in a completely new direction. “I don’t worry about little things anymore,” he said. “I’ve died three times.”
Martin has run all of his marathons with prosthetics. He has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Denali, and hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim. He has challenged himself more than he ever did before the pivotal day in Afghanistan that changed everything. “I do [these challenges] to encourage people with disabilities,” Martin said. “It’s all because my team fought and saved me that day. They saved me on the battlefield and made sure I got back and got these opportunities.”
Sophomore Jake Timblick found Martin’s story to be impressive in that “his life never started in his eyes until he became a double amputee.” Ben Ghatan, also a sophomore, said that the assembly moved him to “appreciate the opportunities that you have and to keep pushing yourself beyond your capabilities. His drive to keep pushing himself was incredible.”
Upper School math teacher Mr. Rudy Nuñez, who last year gave an assembly about his own experiences as a member of the Air Force reserves, found Martin’s story very inspiring. “He had quite literally come back from the brink of death,” Mr. Nuñez said. “It made me reflect on my own attitude in general about negative situations. I think I’m going to try to make the most of any experience regardless of the negative circumstances that might surround it.”
In addition to his new athletic career, Martin has also returned to becoming a police officer. He is the first double-amputee police officer in the United States, which he says is “all I’ve ever wanted to do.” Martin’s injuries, as severe as they were, changed his life dramatically and gave him opportunities he never thought he would have. “Since I’ve been wounded, I’ve had a great life,” he said. “It was really, really bad day that day, but I’ve had a really, really good life.”