Fighting was a practiced routine for Lieutenant Ivan Castro. But when a mortar round struck the rooftop of his sniper s post in Iraq, he found himself in a battle more difficult than even he could have imagined. The direct hit killed two other soldiers and nearly claimed Castro s life as well. Mangled by shrapnel and badly burned, Castro was medevac d to Germany more dead than alive. His lungs were collapsed. He couldn t hear. One eye had been blown out, the nerve to the other severed.

In the weeks and months that followed, Castro would find that physical darkness was nothing...