“How am I going to do this when I’ve got only one leg?” asked Oscar Olguin when invited to ski in the Colorado Mountains.

Oscar was 17 when he left La Puente, Calif., to join the Army. He was 19 when he returned from combat in Iraq, a severely disabled veteran after a suicide bomber crashed into his high-mobility, multipurpose, wheeled vehicle outside Ramadi.

The blast resulted in amputation of Oscar’s right leg. There was serious damage to his left leg and a ligament in his left elbow. Life was never going to be the same again, that’s for sure. So maybe he didn’t feel too confident when asked to attend that ski clinic.

But everything changed at that event, one of many rehabilitation programs sponsored by the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Charitable Service Trust. Oscar left the mountain exclaiming, “This is one of the best things ever! It makes everything seem a lot better because now, I know I can do stuff. And I’m a lot more confident.”

Trust-funded research also is enhancing the technology of the artificial legs Oscar will use throughout his life, and he can count on the amputee-to-amputee counseling the Trust makes possible.

The day he was wounded, Oscar could not have known so much was already prepared and waiting for him back home, thanks to generous people who support the DAV Charitable Service Trust.

And this says nothing of what the Trust does for veterans with other disabilities that are seen all too often among those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan – traumatic brain injuries, blindness, post-traumatic stress, burns, and more.

In all of this work, the Trust looks for innovative ways to help our nation’s disabled defenders adjust to life under new conditions, to find new ways to live full lives in the mainstream of American society.

Through workplace giving programs like the Combined Federal Campaign and the United Way, the Trust makes any number of invaluable initiatives possible for veterans who are aging or homeless … who are women or suffer any number of specific disabilities.

The Trust has provided more than $58.7 million to support these projects. And through the Trust, ordinary Americans change the lives of heroes like Oscar, who now says with great assurance, “Life isn’t over. I just lost a leg.”