Doctors told him he was likely never going to walk again.  And they were going to take his arm, sever it just below the elbow.  "No, you're wrong," U.S. Army staff sergeant Nieves Rodriguez would say, "I'm going to walk again.  You're not going to take my arm."

They were fuzzy conversations between the white-coated medical community and a stubborn machine gunner who had been pinned under a rolled over vehicle during an army mission in northern Iraq.  "Last thing I remember, we were hit by an Iraqi car that jumped out on us," Rodriguez says now.  "I was unconscious for three days."  This was April 2005, and he was on his second deployment, after fracturing two bones in his back during a previous tour.

Rodriguez spent four months at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., healing from his injuries and struggling to come to terms with his new body -- its limitations, its different look, its capabilities.  He had a shattered femur (which is why doctors felt he would never walk again), head trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and yes, they took his right arm, just below the elbow.  A high school football player for four years, Rodriguez couldn't run anymore, couldn't swim, and the thought of never playing sports again pushed him to the edge.

There are thousands of stories like this, tales of soldiers returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan without their limbs, or with injuries that may not be quite as obvious but are no less debilitating.  We hear about them on Veterans Day, and no matter where our politics lie or how we feel about the wars, most of us offer a prayer and a nod of thanks to the vets before turning back to our fantasy leagues and evening highlights.

But the injured soldiers' stories don't all end like we've been conditioned to expect.  Early Wednesday morning, Rodriguez, right, and about 25 other active and retired military veterans who were wounded in combat hopped aboard their varied bikes, took a circle around Las Vegas, and began a journey through the southwest's high desert that will conclude Saturday when they reach Cave Creek, a cyclist's paradise on the tip of Phoenix.

It's called Soldier Ride, and while it might not receive an ounce of attention that sports fans give to, say, the World Series, it really is one of our country's greatest athletic events.  Some competitors pedal with their hands, some look as if they're riding a tricked-out wheelchair.  Some last a mile or two, others have completed a full 4,200-mile cross-country voyage.  More than a test of physical power, it's a salve for the soul.

"At the end, you're like, 'Oh, my God, if I can go from Vegas to Henderson [a suburb of Las Vegas], what can't I not do?'  [Eventually] when I did my first 100 miles, I was beside myself.  I never thought a couple of years ago I'd ever be able to say that," says Rodriguez, 37, who was introduced to Soldier Ride, a program affiliated with the Wounded Warrior Project, by a fellow veteran.

"The camaraderie that comes with sharing your story and hearing their stories, it helps us all just connect," he says. "I once saw a triple amputee on a hand cycle, using his only limb and riding 25 miles.  The next time I saw him eight months later, he had prosthetics.  I said, 'Oh, my God, you're walking!'  I try not to cry in public, but yeah, it is very emotional.  Compared to that, I just got a scratch.  A vet in my unit, an army sniper, he got shot three times.  I got him on a bike and now he rides."

On the eve of his seventh Soldier Ride, Rodriguez had just reached Vegas from Fort Hood, Texas, where he serves with the USAOTC (United States Army Operational Test Command).  Earlier in the day there had been a memorial service for the 13 active and retired soldiers who were gunned down last week in a rampage on their home post, by one of their own.  The attacks took place at a Ft. Hood processing center for deploying troops, where witnesses said Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire.

"Things are a little stressful now," Rodriguez says.  "I saw [reports of the shootings] on TV, and I'm like, 'I know that guy!'  Unfortunately I had a couple of encounters with the shooter when I was at Walter Reed.  Now I've got a whole other load of can of worms [to deal with].  I've been seeing a mental health person the last three years at Ft. Hood.  I was depressed after what happened to me and very angry.  The only thing that helped me was my cycling."

And those doctors who predicted he'd never again walk, just after they had amputated his arm?  "They tell me one way, I'm going to do the opposite," Rodriguez says.  He plays racquetball, golfs, shoots hoops with his daughter Victoria, 12, and helps coach 8-year-old Christina's softball team, throwing the ball with his left hand.  All of it, his active body and fit mind, can be traced back to his connection with Soldier Ride.

"It totally changed my life around," Rodriguez says.  "Mentally and physically."

"I Did See Some Pretty Evil Stuff"

On the outside, Mike Durner doesn't look much different than he did when he initially deployed to Iraq back in 2003.  The U.S. Army captain was with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, and landed in Baghdad on the heels of the first invasion.  He never suffered one particular accident, but PTSD doesn't necessarily present a direct link to broken bones or missing limbs.

"I was there [in Iraq] so early in the war, I only had about three months of active duty left, but they said, 'No, you have to stay until we release you.'  In the meantime I did see some pretty evil stuff," says Durner, 33.  "Then we were the first to leave the theater in Iraq and they didn't really know what to do with us.  They didn't know what we had seen and we didn't know what we had seen.  We didn't know we'd have issues."

The post-war medical processing, says Durner, took 25 minutes. "It's like, there are no holes in you, you have all your parts, you're fine," he says.  His wife was the first to notice his behavioral changes:  his night terrors, his increased aggression, his periods of what he calls "extremely high vigilance."

"I wasn't the person I was before," Durner says.  "Just seeing how the war affected the Iraqi people -- how our daily actions really affected the lives of the innocent -- I couldn't get that out of my head.  It's a lot different now [for soldiers in Iraq].  I went through the V.A. when I returned and took medication, but that didn't work.  It actually made me worse.  I took group therapy but at the time I was the only Iraq war veteran -- it was me and five or six Vietnam vets.  Even though there was some camaraderie, it wasn't the same.  One-on-one counseling didn't fit with what I needed, which was helping other vets who went through the same stuff as I did."

He read about Soldier Ride in a magazine, called immediately and felt like he had finally found a home.  Durner didn't crave the endorphins brought on by exercise -- retired from the service, he's now a fitness coach in Colorado Springs -- but his recovery couldn't take hold without his fellow wounded warriors riding tandem.  There was a moment on a ride earlier in the year when Durner pulled next to a soldier who was using a hand-bike and physically pushed his comrade up a hill.

"This," Durner says of Soldier Ride, "has been the best treatment.  It's allowed me to heal."

"It Was Just a Far-Fetched Idea"

It began as a civilian's good deed after Chris Carney, a small business owner in East Hampton, N.Y., met John Fernandez, a local soldier who had lost both legs in Iraq.  "Everyone has seen movies like Forest Gump where guys come back to the states and don't have the resources they should have," Carney says.  His plan: rather than host an unwieldy fundraiser with many participants riding short distances, why not get one rider to cover thousands of miles and raise money while keeping the overhead low?

"It was just a far-fetched idea," Carney says, "that I thought would be quickly dismissed."  He pitched it to the Wounded Warriors Project folks, and soon Carney was pedaling solo from Montauk Point on New York's Long Island to California, raising more than $1 million.  One year later, in the summer of 2005, Staff Sergeant Heath Calhoun, missing both legs below the knee, and SSG Ryan Kelly, his right leg amputated at the knee, joined Carney for another cross-country trek.

Soldier Ride is now an annual event, with nearly a dozen rides spread across the year, with bicyclists snaking their way through Little Rock and Key West and San Antonio and San Diego and pretty much every point in between.  Outside the White House in 2008, President Bush called Soldier Ride, "the most inspiring athletic event in the country."  President Obama saluted the participants at the start of the most recent national tour.

Soldier Ride is now an annual event, with nearly a dozen rides spread across the year, with bicyclists snaking their way through Little Rock and Key West and San Antonio and San Diego and pretty much every point in between.
"To me, it's the highlight of my year," says Kelly, who was injured by a roadside bomb on an Iraq highway in July 2003.  "It's amazing to see what happens on those bikes, especially with the new guys.  If you haven't been on a bike since you lost a leg or an arm, it's a kick in the butt, but once you finish it, wow, what a high."

Kelly was only three months into his tour, working with civil affairs missions as a liaison between the Iraqis and the military, when three artillery shells detonated next to his vehicle.  He was heading to a town southeast of Baghdad, for a conference on rebuilding schools and hospitals.  It was shortly before 8 in the morning.  The details still come in a rush.

"I was given an amazing opportunity, I got to spend almost every day with the Iraqis and I saw a lot of hope," he says.  "But when I had to be medivacked out of the country, my leg was barely attached.  They finished off the amputation at a field hospital.  I was in Walter Reed for 13 months."

He had turned down a full ROTC scholarship to the University of Utah so he could serve in Iraq, but asking Kelly if he has regrets is like asking Derek Jeter if he ever dreamed of being anything other than a New York Yankee.

"Being a soldier is all I wanted to do.  I didn't want to get hurt," Kelly, 29, says with a slight laugh, "but I wasn't so much frustrated because I lost my leg.  I was just disappointed I wasn't there with the guys I went to war with and worked with 24-7."

The first time he tried to mount a bike after his injury, Kelly couldn't stand up or peddle.  It was a while before he could get the parts to rotate properly, for his new body to synchronize.  He's a private helicopter pilot now, and he skis and he snowboards and he runs every day and does all sorts of activities he never thought about attempting before he lost his leg.  He's rediscovered a new way of living.

"The confidence to do what I'm doing now comes from finding Soldier Ride.  It's a big reason why I was able to successfully transition and turn my injury into almost a blessing," says Kelly, whose new mission is making sure his fellow riders have safe, working equipment that blends with their needs.  "I mean, it's not nice that I lost my leg but you get cards dealt in life and you make the best of them.

"My favorite quote is about making lemonade out of lemons.  Soldier Ride is my lemonade," he says, with another laugh.

"You Have to Live"

U.S. Army Major Arturo Murguia had his head knocked against a vehicle when a rocket-propelled grenade blew up during a security and combat patrol in the Iraq desert in September 2006.  He was the battery commander in charge of some 200 soldiers, and even though his cranium stung and the ground seemed to wobble, Murguia didn't think of going to a hospital.

"We're in the middle of a mission and you couldn't have a commander taken away just because he got a bump on the head," Murguia says.  "I came back from patrol, did the after-action report and went to bed.  That's the way it went back then."

Back in Fort Bragg, N.C., six months later, Murguia, right, experienced another traumatic brain injury during a parachute training exercise.  "The parachute didn't open completely.  I got it open but then it collapsed on me again," he says.  "By the time I opened it again, I was too close to the ground.  I didn't break any bones because I landed on my head."

While the military only recognizes his second injury, Murguia's symptoms are not unlike the ones football and hockey players experience after suffering repeated blows to the head.  "I didn't notice the problems at first but my parents came to visit me and they were like, 'What is going on?  This isn't the son we sent to war.'  I couldn't remember how to tie my boots in the morning.  My speech was slurred."

A UCLA graduate, Murguia says he once had a photographic memory.  He never even bought college textbooks but still graduated with a grade point average above 3.0.  But after the injuries, he says, "my memory skills were gone."  He had severe headaches, couldn't tolerate bright lights and felt ripped apart by vertigo.  "My life was a mess," he says.

"A lot of times you get angry and frustrated because you know something and it's not there.  You think of yourself as a somewhat capable and intelligent person and that's gone," Murguia says.  "The most frustrating thing is when people say, 'Hey, you look fine.'  Would you say the same thing to your mom if she was suffering from breast cancer?"

His first attempt to participate in Soldier Ride was an adventure.  "It took every ounce of control to keep the bike upright and not tip over," says Murguia, 33.  "In a sense, I had to relearn everything about riding and finding balance because I'm not balanced the way I was before.  But I'll tell you what, I learned more about what's available for soldiers to help recover through Soldier Ride than I did through any of the military transition units."

It is Murguia's hope that legislation will soon pass that will help ease the healing of soldiers returning from two wars.  He was blessed, and allowed to recover in a safe environment at the home of his parents, Herlinda and Lt. Col. (Ret.) Anthony R. Murguia, but many veterans dealing with PTSD aren't so lucky.

"It's not enough to survive," Murguia says.  "You have to live."

Thursday morning, under the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., all of them -- Murguia, Rodriguez, Durner and Kelly, along with a brigade of fellow active and retired soldiers -- will embark on the second leg of the final Soldier Ride this year.  Talk about athletes who take your breath away.