#128 - “I Was Ready to Die" An IED Took Both His Legs. Then He Won Gold for Team USA w/Josh Sweeney

He goes from “tip of the spear” to starting over in a single blast and he’s painfully honest about what that actually feels like.

Watch here at: https://youtu.be/Np6lE6zrtU0

We talk with Josh Sweeney, a United States Marine Corps scout sniper who deploys to Afghanistan, gets hit by an IED, and loses both legs above the knee along with major hand injuries. Josh walks us through the moments people rarely hear about: the delayed medevac, the tourniquets, staying awake because the wrong meds could make him bleed out, and the strange fog of ICU drugs and hallucinations. Then we move into the harder fight: rehab, loss of control, and the identity crisis that hits when the uniform and the body you trusted are both gone.

From there, adaptive sports becomes the doorway to a new life. Josh explains how sled hockey brought back team culture and accountability, how his “hockey sense” got him onto Team USA, and what it’s like to play for gold in Russia and score the game-winning goal at the Sochi 2014 Paralympics. He also shares the real cost of elite competition, stepping away for family, rebuilding after divorce, and later finding a new lane in Para Nordic skiing and Paralympic biathlon, including the pressure and strategy of relay racing at the highest level.

We also dig into performance and recovery details that matter: prosthetics realities, sweating and temperature changes after amputation, sleep and recovery as training multipliers, and why he now builds adaptive sports equipment through JS Adaptive Sports to help others get outside and compete. If you care about veteran resilience, mental toughness, adaptive sports, and what it takes to rebuild after trauma, this conversation delivers.

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