DaytonDailyNews.com

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — Sunrise was still some 30 minutes away, and in the midst of the thousands of runners who were taking part in the United States Air Force Marathon, the three of them huddled together a few yards from the start line.

At 6-foot-5, Lt. Col. Fred Dummar towered over the other two. He wore an olive-green T-shirt that proclaimed: "Army Strong — I will never leave a fallen comrade." In his right hand, he fingered a long, white shoestring tied in a loop.

Capt. Ivan Castro stood next to him quiet, a bit nervous. When he bent down to tie his running shoe, you noticed the scars on the back of both his legs and on his arm.

His wife, Evelyn — her camera phone in her hand — watched his every move. Her white T-shirt was identical to his. On the back, above a logo for the 7th Special Forces, were three words:

"Castro — Blind Runner."

Evelyn sensed her husband's mood, and said quietly: "Papi, I'm here."

Straightening up, Ivan fished a hand out in her direction, found her waist and pulled her in close.

Right about then you didn't need much daylight — or, in one case, eyesight — to see this was an ongoing story of loyalty and love and a life built on a motto Ivan lives every day:

"I will not quit."

Two years ago, he was blinded by an enemy mortar while fighting in Iraq.

Saturday, Sept. 20, he ran the Air Force Marathon with Evelyn cheering him from the sidelines and Lt. Colonel Dummar at his side, a running guide connected to him by nothing more than that white shoestring each man held.

As Dummar put it before the race: "I just provide the eyes — it's Ivan who provides the heart."

A warrior first

It was a September morning in 2006 when Ivan — a platoon leader with the 82nd Airborne Division — was on a rooftop in Yusifiyah, Iraq, some 20 miles southwest of Baghdad, providing sniper support in a fight with insurgents.

As an officer he didn't have to be up there. But it was a dangerous assignment, and he didn't want his soldiers doing something he would not do.

It was the same way when he was a kid growing up in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico. His mother — raising him on her own after they moved from New Jersey — always taught him to carry his load.

And so when he found himself losing interest in college, he gave up an athletic scholarship to the University of Puerto Rico, enlisted in the Army in 1990 and brought along his work ethic: Army Ranger, Special Forces weapons specialist, Green Beret and, after completing officers training school, 82nd Airborne as a first lieutenant. Along the way, he served in Desert Storm and Desert Shield, worked missions in South America and did a tour in Afghanistan.

That fateful day of that Iraq rooftop, the mortar landed just 5 feet away.

"All I remember was the flash of light and the boom and after that ... " he said, his voice trailing off to a whisper. " ... I was in a dream."

A bad dream.

Two soldiers next to him — 36-year-old Sgt. Ralph Porras from Saginaw, Mich., and 21-year-old Pfc. Justin Dreese from Freeburg, Pa. — were killed.

Shrapnel ripped into Castro's body, blowing out his right eye and leaving a metal fragment in his left. Bones were broken, both lungs collapsed and the top half of his right index finger was ripped off.

Heavily sedated for six weeks, he remembers finally emerging through the fog and hearing Evelyn at his side.

"She was right by my face, talking in my ear," he said. "She was saying, 'Papi don't worry. I'm right beside you. You're back home. You're in the hospital. You're missing your right eye. I have to tell you, though, that Ralph died and another kid did, too. You're going to go in for surgery. You have a fragment in your left eye, but you should be OK.' "

Bleak days

Evelyn Galvis and Ivan met in the Dominican Republic in 1999. Raised in Queens, she was there on vacation. He was there to regroup after the death of his beloved mother.

He'd been married before, had a son and a military career that he told Evelyn about.

"He was genuine," she said. "He wasn't trying to give me a pickup line. He spoke from the heart, and that appealed to me."

Some 18 months later they married, and it was that unwavering love that sustained them, especially when Ivan awoke from that surgery on his left eye.

"I was the one who had to tell him that they hadn't been able to save the eye, that he wouldn't see again," Evelyn said.

Ivan remembers hearing the doctor repeat her words. "I felt like I was standing between both towers of the World Trade Center and had them both fall down right on my shoulders," he said quietly. "My whole world had crumbled in."

It was crushing for Evelyn as well: "We had some bleak, bleak days and nights ... He is a very independent individual. He was a Special Forces operator. He did the missions that none of us would have had the courage to perform and then, all of a sudden, he was going to have to depend on others."

First, though, he asked for an explanation: "I was very upset with the Lord up above. I said, 'God, what have I done to deserve this? Why are you punishing me? Why are you doing this to my wife? My son?' "

Castro's voice broke, as he fended off the echo of those old questions again: "I remember crying every night with my mother-in-law. I was devastated."

According to a Survey of Ophthalmology study, more than 1,100 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan — 13 percent of those with serious injuries — have had surgery on their eyes. Because of the roadside bombs, mortars and grenades used on U.S. troops, it's made for the highest percentage of eye wounds in any major conflict going back to World War I.

For the Castros, it's meant Evelyn — who now also works as a speech pathologist with traumatic brain injury patients at Womack Army Hospital at Fort Bragg, N.C. — would immerse herself in every aspect of Ivan's care. That included providing some special vision.

"I told him what he couldn't see around him in the ICU were these 21 year olds with different amputations and brain injuries. I tried to explain, 'There are so many parents on this floor whose kids may never recognize them again. They would love to have their child walk, talk, eat and recognize them. And Ivan, you can do all of that. Your mind is sharp. It's still you. That's what we have to be thankful for.' "

Ivan understands that now, and running has helped that process: Lying in bed two months after he was injured, he overheard a doctor and a nurse discussing the Marine Corps Marathon. And suddenly he made that his goal. Never mind he needed people just to help him stand and had lost 50 pounds of muscle.

Like Evelyn said, he always was the guy who took on missions the rest of us never could.

And a year after he lost his sight, he did run the Army 10-miler in Washington, D.C, in 85 minutes and then pushed his way through the Marine Corps Marathon — exhausting two running companions before latching onto a third — to finish in 4 hours, 14 minutes.

Since then — while returning to active duty as an executive officer of the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg — he's run the Bataan Death March Marathon in New Mexico and the Boston Marathon. The New York City Marathon will come in November.

Single-minded purpose

Saturday's race went well until the 18-mile mark when the late-morning heat began to pick up, and Ivan hit the wall.

When he briefly slowed to a walk — fighting exhaustion and disappointment — Dummar told him: "Listen Ivan, Evelyn's still going to love you. I'm still going to run with you. It's not gonna matter when we finish."

Although he's said his hearing has intensified with the loss of his sight, Ivan didn't seem to hear that and soon was running again.

"Col. Dummar is an ultra-marathoner," he said. "He could have finished the race long before this, but he was there for me. It's that 'never leave a fallen comrade behind.' "

And that's what Ivan was doing, too.

"It's not just about him anymore," Evelyn said. "He's running for those guys he served with, the guys who died, the guys back in those hospital beds. He's an advocate for them. He doesn't want people to forget them."

And how could they if they saw Saturday's finish?

Coming down the final stretch through that corridor of storied old planes outside the Air Force Museum — past the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar, the Lockhead AC-130 Hercules, the Boeing NKC 135A Stratotanker — Ivan responded to the crowd's cheers and especially Evelyn's voice.

With Col. Dummar at his side, he crossed the finish line in 4 hours, 16 minutes — ahead of more than half the field.

As Evelyn ran to him and they embraced, you remembered something he had said earlier:

"I want to show — given the right tools and opportunity — those of us who have been injured can do anything. I'm here to show people I'm just like you."

Well, not quite.

Sight or no sight, he's a quite a bit more.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2156

or tarchdeacon@DaytonDailyNews.com.