Forever Buff Melissa Stockwell is a Team USA member in the Paralympic Games in Tokyo

Melissa Stockwell: From wounded soldier to Paralympian

Meet the Paralympian: Melissa Stockwell

Melissa Stockwell is a two-time Paralympian and won a para-triathlon bronze medal for the U.S. at the Rio Olympics in 2016. She also won three consecutive gold medals at the World Triathlon Series from 2010 to 2012. Born in Grand Haven, Michigan, and currently living in Colorado Springs, Stockwell is a recipient of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart after serving in the U.S. Army from 2002 to 2005.

On 13 April 2004, U.S. Army officer Melissa Stockwell set off on a ‘ride-along to learn the route of a supply delivery convoy she was due to take over the following day. She had only been deployed to Iraq a month earlier.

“We left our gate and about 10 minutes into the ride, we went under this underpass and it was deafening. I mean, boom and black smoke,” Stockwell revealed during an exclusive podcast with the Olympic Channel. “The smell of metal, the windshields, crafts, and vehicles swerving. And ultimately, we had hit a roadside bomb.”

The Humvee she had been driving in crashed into the side of a local woman’s house. And as she emerged from the scene, covered in blood, she realized that something was not right.

“Lucky for me, there was a combat medic a few vehicles back that knew I was hurt, ran up and started to, what I thought was administer first aid, but really saved my life because I was losing so much blood.” “But what I didn’t know then and I know now is that my leg was gone and then severed. And that was the first day of my new life of living life with one leg.”

It would be easy to think that such a life-changing moment would lead to a period of denial or self-pity. But Stockwell made a deliberate choice to “accept the loss and move on”. A choice that, in her own words, “propelled my life in ways that I could never have dreamt of”.

After returning home, she dedicated her time and efforts toward helping fellow service members, working as a prosthetist, and serving on the board of directors of the Wounded Warrior Project for a decade. But shortly after settling back into life in America, her athletic impulses tapped at her from within.

“I was always athletic growing up,” Stockwell said, “and after losing my leg I wanted to get back into it somehow.” She said that shortly after formally retiring from the Army in 2005, she took up swimming, and eventually ended up transitioning her swimming efforts and her fervor into remaking herself as a triathlete. Then she set her sights on the next big thing.

“I set a goal to reach the 2008 Paralympic Games,” Stockwell said, also adding that she used that big goal as a motivator. “I knew that if I trained hard enough, I would get to compete on the world stage.” Stockwell is now preparing for the final stages of her training for another Paralympic Games, set to begin August 24 in Tokyo.

It has become a philosophy by which Stockwell has gone on to live her life, and the title of her new book The Power of Choice: My Journey from Wounded Soldier to World Champion.

“So that choice, I think, all of our lives are kind of driven by the choices that we make,” Stockwell explained. “But just that the power of that one choice kind of, you know, made my life incredible in so many ways.”

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