After losing a leg from a landmine in Afghanistan, Army Specialist Ryan McIntosh was outfitted with a carbon-fiber prosthetic right leg. There's a sticker attached that reads "Freedom is not free, but it's worth fighting for," and that message is now getting wide exposure through the U.S. Open, which took McIntosh on as a ball boy this summer.
"I'm just a ballperson when I'm here," McIntosh, who gets paid $7.75 an hour, tells the AP. "It's the same when I'm in the Army. I'm just a specialist. I'm not anything special. I don't consider myself a wounded warrior. When I have my uniform on, you cannot tell. And that's kind of my biggest goal here, too." At tryouts for the job, McIntosh was asked if he could throw a tennis ball. "I said, 'I've thrown grenades, so I think I can handle a tennis ball.'"
McIntosh, a 23-year-old from San Antonio who has a young son, also works as the adaptive sports coordinator in the Army, helping wounded soldiers get back into sports while they heal. He competed against 600 other would-be ballpeople to get the U.S. Open assignment. The Daily News reports that he still has nightmares of bombs and explosions, and on Monday night he was working a match when fireworks from the opening ceremony went off. "Blasts still freak me out," McIntosh told the News. "Literally it’s like my stomach going into my throat. It is gut-wrenching."
