As a child of 1970s California, Derek McGinnis felt that riding waves was like a birthright, and losing his left leg to a suicide bomber in Iraq wasn't going to stop him from surfing again.
He rallied nearly a dozen other amputees who were wounded in action that he met in a military hospital and brought them to one of California's last old-fashioned beach towns.
For some of them, the roiling ocean became a second home. The closest others had come to riding waves was in the movies.
PHOTO: AP
McGinnis brought determination to his quest.
"I have a board and [have to] make sure I keep on using it," said McGinnis, 28, a Navy petty officer and medic who began surfing at age 10 in Northern California.
"I said: `Man, I've got to be able to do it. It's possible.'"
So there he stood one foggy August morning, with an ear-to-ear grin and a brand-new wet suit.
With him on the beach was Tim Brumley, who had never handled a surfboard before, though he looked the part with his short-cropped, blond hair. The former paratrooper, who lost a leg in Afghanistan last year, had never even seen the Pacific, save for a fleeting glimpse when he visited San Francisco as a kid.
However, as a teenager in New Mexico, Brumley saw a classic flick with some of the best surfing ever put on film.
"When I saw Point Break I said, `That's it! I want to surf,'" declared the 26-year-old airborne infantry veteran as he pounded down beers and told war stories at a seaside bar the night before his first lesson.
Nearly 320km north of Los Angeles, Pismo Beach is perhaps most famous to tourists for its clams and funny name. To surfers, Pismo means smooth waves, mild weather and pure white beaches more likely to yield a sand dollar than a rock. It is one of a vanishing breed of surfing towns, a place where band of hard-core surfers still park beat-up RVs for free right next to the sand and head to the waves.
Better yet for McGinnis and friends, it's also the home turf of champion surfer Rodney Roller. He lost a leg in a forklift accident 16 years ago, but returned to the water lugging a 11kg wooden limb.
Now the 39-year-old Roller teaches other amputees. After McGinnis tracked him down, he agreed to instruct the military men for free, figuring it was payback for all the people who helped him get back in the water.
McGinnis met most of his crew at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Houston, Texas, where he was recovering after a suicide bomber crashed an explosives-laden car into his ambulance two years ago.
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