Anchorage Daily News

Charlie Potter wants to prove a point.

An Iraq war veteran who nearly lost his left arm when his convoy was ambushed, Potter wants to show other wounded vets that their lives can return to some sense of normalcy. Steps along the never-ending road to recovery begin with a decision to start, he says.

To that end, the 24-year-old is running in next month's 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmachine race from Big Lake to Fairbanks.

A titanium rod replaced the crushed bone in his upper arm. The arm is still painful, but he has regained most of its use. He has ridden snowmachines all his life while growing up in Big Lake but he's never run the Iron Dog, a race dubbed the "world's longest, toughest snowmachine race."

Potter's Iron Dog partner is Wasilla's James Hastings, a retired Army airborne infantry officer. Hastings, 40, recruited Potter into the Army Reserve. Working through the Alaska State Elks Association, Hastings is a director of the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit that aids injured war veterans.

Potter and Hastings aim to finish a wilderness quest to not only show what a wounded vet can do, but to raise money for WWP -- a service through which Hastings has already helped severely troubled soldiers.

"We want to show fellow vets that if you have the help and support, and the right frame of mind, you can (recover) from anything," Hastings said, "from a scratch, to (post-traumatic stress disorder) to a lost arm or leg."

Said Potter: "Our ultimate goal is to prove a point to everybody. You can be put on the bottom of the pile and eventually get back up to the top where you started."

ATTACK

On July 3, 2005, an Army convoy of four Humvees sped south from Tikrit, Iraq, on a two-hour trip to Balad.

Army Reserve Spc. Potter manned a .50-caliber machine gun. As part of the 793rd Engineering Detachment, Potter was stationed in Tikrit working as a combat engineer. His convoy was en route to set up soldiers' housing units.

As the convoy crossed a bridge, a small explosion flattened the tire on one of the trucks. Unable to repair it, the convoy left it and turned around. Potter now rode in the rear Humvee.

Suddenly, from atop a building, a rocket-propelled grenade struck Potter's machine-gun turret. The explosion nearly blew off his left arm. Several grenades followed and exploded nearby. Shrapnel punched a quarter-sized hole in his cheek and split his lip open down to his chin.

Potter's 8-month stint in Iraq was over. His lifelong recovery had just begun.

RECOVERY

Potter underwent several reconstructive surgeries to repair his arm. After the surgery that repaired his shattered upper arm with the titanium rod, he underwent plastic surgery to his face. He was in and out of hospitals in Germany, Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Potter was the only soldier injured in the attack and received a Purple Heart. It was his second Purple Heart -- he'd received another after taking shrapnel in his leg in the April before the ambush. He pulled up a sleeve to reveal long zipper scars on his upper arm.

"It's still painful, but I haven't had to take any medication in a month," he said. "Overall, it's in fair condition. For what happened, it's in excellent condition. I have a decent grip now. I was left-handed, but I use both of them now."

WE MEET AGAIN

Far from bitter over his experience, Potter returned to the Army Reserve in Alaska and worked in recruiting. While undergoing physical therapy at the Warrior Transition Unit on Fort Richardson, he met up with Hastings, who had since moved from the Army to recruit for the Army National Guard.

"His commander at the time called me up and said, 'Do you know a Specialist Potter? He wants to come work for you,' " Hastings recalled, adding that the commander had no problem letting Potter shift from the Reserve to the National Guard.

The bond between Hastings and Potter was more than recruiter-soldier. They met during Potter's junior year of high school. Struggling in school, Potter caught sight of Hastings in his uniform. He knew he wanted to join the military.

"He didn't recruit me. I recruited myself," Potter said. "I went to him and said, 'Hey, this is what I want to do. Make it happen.' "

Hastings helped Potter finish high school, providing him a quiet place to study in his recruiting office and tutoring him. Potter graduated from Mid-Valley High in 2002. At 17, he joined the Reserve as a heavy equipment operator. The invasion of Iraq would soon begin.

Potter deployed in September 2004. His skills as a heavy equipment operator were needed in reconstruction efforts. Before his injuries, Potter worked on several projects, including rebuilding the hospital in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown.

WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT

Hastings is a member of the Alaska State Elks Association, which sponsors WWP in Alaska.

The Jacksonville, Fla.-based Wounded Warrior Project would send injured veterans from Outside to Alaska for fishing and hunting trips, Hastings said. That was expensive, and with so many Alaska-based veterans returning from Iraq, Hastings said it made sense to form a WWP program here.

Hastings said each of Alaska's 17 Elks Lodges has a WWP representative who helps raise money for local vets and to donate to the national program.

Hastings takes injured veterans fishing through his guiding service, Alaska River Sports Inc. One troubled veteran Hastings took fishing was Spc. Stephen Cavanaugh, who survived 300 Iraq missions but was killed in December when his vehicle struck a moose on the Seward Highway.

Post-traumatic stress disorder haunted Cavanaugh, according to Hastings and news accounts of his death.

Hastings said one fishing trip on Little Willow Creek with other veterans helped pull Cavanaugh out of his shell. The quiet experience of paddling a boat, glimpsing Mount McKinley, and wetting a line proved restorative for Cavanaugh, Hastings said.

"(Cavanaugh) said, 'I've gotten more out of today than I have sitting in four months of therapy, because I was actually relaxed. I didn't have any fears or concerns,' " Hastings said.

Potter also knew Cavanaugh, and said he seemed transformed after the trip.

"Before, he would look down when he was talking to you, with his hoodie on," Potter said. "It turned him around 180 degrees. He was headed back to where he needs to be."

Hastings and Potter have dedicated their race to Cavanaugh.

LONG ROAD TO RECOVERY

Hastings said working with veterans like Cavanaugh has helped him deal with his own conflicted feelings about recruiting young men and women who were sent to war.

"He helped me, because as a recruiter, I enlisted Charlie and 25 other people in the Valley," Hastings said. "A lot of people trusted me enough to listen to me long enough to decide this is what they want to do. And that bothered me. It still bothers me.

"These guys come home and I see them and there's no bad blood, they're happy with the choice they made," he said. "Stephen was beneficial in helping me because I had to help him understand his role, and therefore I had to understand my own role. It wasn't my fault."

Potter had to make a choice whether or not his injury would aversely affect his life.

"You can choose not to do it," he said. "It's up to you what you want to do. You can whine and cry and play video games all day, and if I was that type of person, then no, I wouldn't be in good shape."

Hastings compared the long Iron Dog trail to the long road to recovery.

"The road to recovery is the longest trail in the world," he said. "Metaphorically speaking, we're going on a trail 2,000 miles, but it doesn't end there."

Find Ron Wilmot online at adn.com/contact/rwilmot or call 1-907-352-6712.

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