FORT BRAGG, N.C. (June 30) - When Capt. Ivan Castro joined the Army, he set goals: to jump out of planes, kick in doors and lead soldiers into combat. He achieved them all. Then the mortar round landed five feet away, blasting away his sight.
"Once you're blind, you have to set new goals," Castro said.
He set them higher.
Not content with just staying in the Army, he is the only blind officer serving in the Special Forces - the small, elite units famed for dropping behind enemy lines on combat missions.
"I am going to push the limits," said the 40-year-old executive officer at the 7th Special Forces Group's headquarters company in Fort Bragg. "I don't want to go to Fort Bragg and show up and sit in an office. I want to work every day and have a mission."
Since the war began in Iraq, more than 100 troops have been blinded and 247 others have lost sight in one eye. Only two other blind officers serve in the active-duty Army: one a captain studying to be an instructor at West Point, the other an instructor at the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Castro's unit commander said his is no charity assignment. Rather it draws on his experience as a Special Forces team member and platoon leader with the 82nd Airborne Division.
"The only reason that anyone serves with 7th Special Forces Group is if they have real talents," said Col. Sean Mulholland. "We don't treat (Castro) as a public affairs or a recruiting tool."
An 18-year Army veteran, Castro was a Ranger before completing Special Forces training, the grueling yearlong course many soldiers fail to finish. He joined the Special Forces as a weapons sergeant, earned an officer's commission and moved on to the 82nd - hoping to return one day to the Special Forces as a team leader.
Then life changed on a rooftop outside Youssifiyah, Iraq, in September 2006.
Castro had relieved other paratroopers atop a house after a night of fighting. He never heard the incoming mortar round. There was just a flash of light, then darkness.
Shrapnel tore through his body, breaking his arm and shoulder and shredding the left side of his face. Two other paratroopers died.
When Castro awoke six weeks later at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., his right eye was gone. Doctors were unable to save his left. [...]
