CNN:
Ivan Castro, a former Army Ranger, gingerly makes his way down the ski slopes, guided by instructors down a snow-packed Idaho mountain. For this Iraq war veteran, his goal is simple: make it from the ski lift down to the bottom of the mountain without falling.
Castro is blind — the result of a mortar exploding just five feet away from him. After he lost his sight, he says, he “never thought” he’d be able to do something like skiing again. Less than two years later, he is accomplishing a feat he never dreamed possible.
“You know when you’re blinded, you don’t know what life is. You don’t know what’s out there,” Castro said.
Castro and nine other Iraqi vets blinded in the Iraq war were in Sun Valley for the Sun Valley Adaptive Sports program last month. The program is offered to anyone with disabilities, but there is a special program for veterans wounded in Iraq.