Melissa Stockwell - U.S. Army 2002-05

Melissa Stockwell joined the ROTC at the University of Colorado in her sophomore year and was a senior in college when the September 11, 2001 attack happened. She had Transportation Officer Basic Corps in Virginia before being assigned to the the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas. She was deployed in March 2004 to Iraq.

A first lieutenant, she was the first female soldier to lose a limb in the Iraq War. She lost her left leg when a roadside bomb exploded when she was leading a convoy in Baghdad. For her service in Iraq she was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

Following her retirement from the military Melissa worked as a prosthetist, served on the board of directors of the Wounded Warrior Project from 2005–2014 , is a two-time Paralympian, mother of two and is the co-founder of www.dare2tri.org We first interviewed Melissa in 2014 and recently updated her interview via Skype