Air Force Academy – Kyle Martin has always wanted to be a pilot.
At age 2, he’d look skyward and declare: “Plane.”
“I’d fly a trash can if it had wings,” said Martin, now 21.
The self-disciplined, goal-oriented young man excelled in high school and again as a cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
By the end of his sophomore year at the academy, he was ranked No. 2 in his class. Instructors began considering him for nomination of the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships.
Despite his accomplishments, Martin had a problem. At 6-foot-5, he was considered too tall for the cockpits of most Air Force planes. Martin, always determined, banked his future on hope. Surely, if he did well at the academy, the Air Force would grant him a waiver to fly.
Then, in August 2003, just a week before the start of his junior year, Martin’s world tumbled out of control.
Martin and his academy buddies planned to climb a 65-foot sheer face in Boulder Canyon.
“Toss me my helmet,” Martin told a buddy while strapping on other protection.
“I was probably a little too cocksure of myself. I was like, ‘OK, no problem.’ … I probably didn’t take enough time to really consider the problem and just went after it.”
Martin climbed. When he reached about 50 feet, he accidentally kicked out a camming device he had placed in the rock at about 45 feet. He knew if he didn’t cling to the rock and make it to the top, he’d “deck out,” tumbling all the way to the ground.
One move from the top, Martin lunged for what looked to be a hole in the rock, a handle he could grab onto. It was only a pigment change in the rock.
“Faaallll,” he screamed.
The summer before, Martin learned how to parachute at Army Airborne School. Somehow, as he tumbled backward off the rock face, all he could hear was that Army instructor’s voice: “Feet and knees together. Feet and knees together.”
Martin landed feet-first and fell backward, hitting his helmet on a pointed rock.
His buddies ran for help. Two held his hands while his body shook with spasms. His back throbbed. But he could feel his feet – a good sign.
All he could think: “Oh, no.”
Martin was lucky to be alive. People who fall farther than 40 feet usually die, and those who don’t are usually paralyzed.
At the AFA hospital, his friends visited. No one talked about the obvious. Would Martin ever fly?
“Everyone knew that’s all I ever wanted to do, but no one said a word,” he said.
The first doctor, a reservist, told him the dream was over.
“He said, ‘Dude, you’re never going to fly. You’re lucky if you’ll even be commissionable,”‘ Martin said.
The diagnostic tests, MRIs, X-rays all seemed to indicate Martin had two to five compression fractures in his vertebrae. In the Air Force, a cadet can be non-commissionable if a broken bone does not heal or causes severe loss of function.
Martin spent eight days in the hospital, and six weeks elapsed before he could return to classes.
“Initially, it was all he could do to get out of bed. Then, we were pushing him around in a wheelchair,” said his mother, Sonya Carter, of Lawrence, Kan., who spent weeks nursing her son back to health.
He took a lot of painkillers and fought hard to keep up academically. The academy – and his mother – strongly urged him to sit out a year.
“He physically could not make it to class,” his mother said.
In the recovery, Martin gradually started to look at life differently. All the achievements, the 4.0 GPA in high school, being ranked No. 2 in his class at the academy, didn’t mean as much as life itself.
“All those numbers were great and important, but when the chips hit the fan, it was about my friends who came to see me in the hospital.
“All the tests I had taken and the papers I had written didn’t mean crap. … Some paper that you got an A on isn’t there for you like your friends.”
The Air Force didn’t officially determine Martin’s injuries until last fall. He had broken only one bone in his lower back and the injury was not severe enough to keep him out of the Air Force.
In fact, the hard landing in Boulder Canyon also compressed the discs in his back. Martin was an inch shorter.
At 6 feet 4 inches, he can fly any aircraft in the Air Force. No waiver is necessary.
His mother could hear the ecstasy in Martin’s voice when he called to tell her he was pilot qualified.
Next week, Martin will be honored as a distinguished graduate, in the top 5 percent of the class of 2005. After a speech by Vice President Dick Cheney, he’ll toss his white cap in jubilation.
Next spring, look for him over the skies of Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas. He’ll be seated comfortably in the cockpit.
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
