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Midway through Matt Keil's second deployment in Iraq, he came home and married his fiancee, Tracy, in 2007.
He had two weeks R&R; no time for a honeymoon.
Before he went back to war the couple had the sort of conversation unique to newlyweds in the military. "I told her if you get a phone call that I'm injured, I'm probably fine," Matt says. "But if they come to the apartment or to your work in person, then I'm dead."
Six weeks later the news came — a phone call, thankfully. Matt had been shot in the shoulder. It wasn't until Tracy got to Walter Reed Army Medical Center that she got the full story. The sniper's bullet had nicked Matt's spine.
"The doctor came in and told me he was paralyzed from the neck down, and he said it was a 'Christopher Reeve'-type injury," says Tracy.
Questions overwhelmed them about the future, including whether they'd ever be able to have children. It seemed like something they could figure out later.
"They were kinda telling us we're putting...
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