WALTER REED NATIONAL MILITARY MEDICAL CENTER, D.C. — When Army Sgt. Patrick Smith woke up in a hospital bed battered, bruised, and disoriented, he didn’t remember the explosion in Iraq that got him there.

His wife arrived to hold his mangled hand, part of the entire right side of his body that had been badly damaged by the explosion that killed three of his squadmates, while the doctors explained his “new normal” to him: He would never stand on his own again.

But at that moment, Smith vowed to himself and his family that not only would he stand again — through the determination he learned in the army, the love of his wife, and his unshakeable faith in God — he would walk and run again, which was an unreasonable expectation, because the doctors were right.

“Turns out doctors don’t tell you that you’ll never be able to walk again just to fuck with you,” Smith told reporters.