Veteran Marine Charlie Linville Is First Combat-Wounded Amputee To Conquer Mount Everest

Marine Staff Sgt. Charlie Linville was injured while serving in Afghanistan

On Jan. 20, 2011, Marine Staff Sgt. Charlie Linville and his fellow technicians were investigating a roadside bomb detonation when, during a sweep of the area, Linville triggered another bomb. The device was probably laid to hit the Marines who were responding to the initial explosion. Linville’s right foot and hand were riddled with shrapnel, and after years of surgery and rehab, his foot was amputated in 2013.

Linville, 30, and a father of two from Boise, Idaho, decided to have his right leg amputated below the knee after rehabilitation and reconstructive surgeries, according to The Heroes Project, an organization that leads mountaineering expeditions with gravely wounded veterans and active service members. Linville and his climbing partners battled winds of up to 50 miles per hour during the nine hours it took them to reach Mt. Everest’s summit.

It was Linville’s third attempt at summiting the 29,000-foot peak. An avalanche thwarted his first try, in 2014, and in 2015 a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that caused widespread damage throughout the region canceled that year’s climbing season.

“I was told no by doctors and people you know look at you and pity you in a certain way,” Linville said. “I really wanted to prove that disabled people – disabled veterans – are capable of so much more than people really give them credit for, or people give themselves credit for.”

On his successful attempt, he spent four months away from home. Linville and his family are looking forward to a normal life, but that isn’t something he’s ever really done.

“Coming back to Boise and the thought of settling down into kind of what normalcy is, it’s gonna be hard, but I think I need normalcy for a while,” Linville said.

While he is happy to be back with his wife and two daughters, he knows the adrenaline junkie in him will need a fix again soon enough.

Linville has two goals, and the first is rather lofty. “My ultimate item number one is getting to space,” Linville said. “So if I can figure out how to get to space I would go in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even ask the wife, I would just (say) I’m going!”

The other is to spend as much time with his little girls as possible. “If I succeed at being a good dad, at the end of the day, at the end of my life, that’s what I really want.”

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