Sgt. Joseph Mille said when he grows older, he doesn't want to "sit in my rocking chair, or on my death bed" with any regrets. He wants to be sure he did everything he possibly could, and that "life was awesome."
For the 23-year-old kid from Sitka, Alaska, that vague sentiment translates into the specific notion that he should be jumping out of Army planes and attending Ranger school — despite having already lost left a leg in Afghanistan.
The marksmanship unit soldier became the first Army lower-leg amputee to earn his Airborne wings on Nov. 14 and in January he will start down a rugged path to possibly become the first lower-leg amputee to graduate from Ranger school.
(At least one Marine amputee, Sgt. Christopher Chandler, completed the Army's Basic Airborne Course, in 2003. Chandler lost his left foot and lower calf in 2001 in Afghanistan.)
Mille decided to keep going; in fact, he wants to finish a 20-year career in the Army if his body lets him, of which he has 15 years left.
For him, the decision to stay in was "personal."
"I got hurt two years in. I didn't really feel complete, I didn't have that closure I wanted. I got physically fit and found I could still do the job," Mille said. "I just wasn't ready to be a civilian yet. If you can physically do the job, then why not?"
From there, he set to making himself as valuable an asset as he could, and so he enrolled in jump school. Landing after a parachute jump proved to be the most difficult part of flight school.
His current instructor in the master marksmanship trainer course, Sgt. 1st Class Ken Rose, happens to also be a former Black Hat (Airborne instructor. He said Mille's his efforts and accomplishments provide a true testament to his character.
"Hands down his biggest asset is his mental fortitude, his mental toughness," Rose said, before adding his physical fitness.
After completing training to be a marksman instructor, Mille will start pre-Ranger school in January.
"As if something is squeezing real hard"
During a patrol on his last month of deployment, Mille said he walked right past two IEDs. in … Afghanistan on …. He missed them, but the rear man triggered one. As he ran back, he found the second one. He said he remembers everything.
"There was a weird feeling on my right foot: numb, as if something is squeezing real hard," Mille said. He then looked down. "I was like, 'Oh, something's missing.' The foot was gone."
Quick-acting medics managed to save a lot of what was left, leaving the amputation about four inches below the knee. He admits that at first, he struggled, at least until he began to recover and realize what he would be able to do.
"At first I was down. I ain't gonna lie. I wasn't a real happy person. I had a career mindset," Mille said. "Pretty much finding out I could stay in and perform the job was the light at the end of the tunnel, salvation if you want to call it that."
He wasn't able to walk much early; his other leg was also "jacked up" in the blast as well. But once he started running his worries began to fade, replaced by determination to get on with his career. He dismisses his misfortune with a casual "It happens to a lot of people."
Rose was less dismissive of the will required to overcome the trauma of losing a limb.
"You or I can't imagine the physical and emotional constraints," Rose said. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a knee and going on to do something else in life. To come back and go through airborne school, that's truly unique and something special."
"Stick in a snowbank"
The biggest challenge to graduating jump school would be performing a parachute landing fall.
In the process of landing, jumpers contort their lower body to resemble the base of a rocking chair, Rose noted. He noted that Mille doesn't have all five "fleshy" points of contact on which jumpers distribute the landing, and that the first couple of techniques were not successful.
"Since I don't have a calf, and the knee is out of the question," Mille said, he had to modify his procedure. That resulted in some trial and error as he trained in the swing landing trainer, a platform from which trainees swing and then eventually drop to the ground. "When I first tried it, it was like throwing a stick into a snow bank. I just kind of stuck in the ground."
But after consulting with people including other amputees who have parachuted before, he eventually managed to work out a modification of the technique that worked. The sniper school graduate, who initially joined the marksmanship organization division to join the Paralympic shooting team, had added another skill set.
Ranger school, meanwhile, will offer different problems. Asked what the biggest would be, Rose didn't hesitate.
"The amount of time he would spend with a ruck sack on his back. Carrying the combat load. He's going to be rucking for a lot of miles," Rose said.
Rose didn't doubt that he could do it, though he said it will hinge on both technological advances in prosthesis and Mille's will.
"It will definitely be a combination of the two," Rose said.
His history suggests that if it's possible for him, Mille will find a way. He said he doesn't really consider his condition a road block anymore; he prefers the term "modified soldier." The son of a 30-year Coast Guard vet (a rescue swimmer) simply doesn't have interest in slowing down, and the adrenaline junkie said colleagues and friends know that he wouldn't even think of it.
"None of them envision me working at a desk," Mille said.
