Injured Marine Makes It to Cotton Bowl

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Jan. 1, 2005 -- -- Josh Amstutz made the Texas A&M team as a walk on -- a non-scholarship player -- and so far all he has done is keep the bench warm.

But this 23-year-old has seen far more action than any of his teammates -- having returned from the war in Iraq with a bullet through his leg and worked his way onto the team, which plays Tennessee today in the Cotton Bowl.

"I came back at 155 [pounds] from Iraq," Josh said. "Now, I am at 195."

At the start of the war, Amstutz was badly wounded by an Iraqi sniper on the outskirts of Baghdad.

"I looked down and saw the blood and knew I had been hit," Josh said.

With a bullet through his leg, he continued to pursue the enemy.

"I knew I still had a mission to accomplish and kept trying to accomplish that mission," he said.

One of the hardest times for Josh's wife, Jessica, was when the Marines called and told her they weren't sure he would even walk again.

"He said, 'Ma'am, we don't want to alarm you. Your husband is alive, but he has been shot by an enemy sniper,' " she recalled.

After more than a year of rehabilitation, Josh is now 100 percent. He has a Purple Heart and the bullet that struck him.

His teammates have a hero.

"To go over there and get shot, and come back and try out for the football team and actually make it" is impressive, said Jaxon Appel, one of Amstutz' teammates. "A lot of people don't understand the scout team and the walk-ons. … It is difficult because they don't get to play or get a lot of looks."