By Ruth Steinhardt
A year and a half after losing both legs to an explosive device, Marine Corps Capt. Matt Lampert was running again—and not just in his uniform.
Wearing the full-body armor and heavy pack required in active service, he retrained himself to perform all his professional duties on prosthetic legs. Eighteen months after his devastating injury, Mr. Lampert returned to his Special Operations unit and to Afghanistan.
Now, he wants to guide and to mentor military service members who face challenges of their own. Mr. Lampert is a company officer at the U.S. Naval Academy and part of the second cohort of the George Washington University’s Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) Program.
LEAD offers a master’s degree with a curriculum that combines courses from the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences and the Naval Academy. It is one of many resources available to veterans and active service members at GW, which recently was named to the 2016 Military Friendly schools list and as one of Military Times' Best for Vets.
LEAD is the latest refinement of the Naval Academy’s professional development program established specifically for its company officers, like Mr. Lampert, who serve as “military guidance counselors” to around 150 midshipmen. He earned his own undergraduate degree in history from the Naval Academy.
“[Midshipmen] are college-age kids, and like the students here at GW, they tend to be overachievers,” he said. “They’re getting their college degrees, and they’re going through the same things as any other undergraduate.
“I want to be involved in that and help give them some perspective on what’s important and what isn’t.”
Mr. Lampert understands the importance of both perspective and a strong support system.
In 2010, his wife, Camille, a fellow Marine, deployed to Afghanistan while he was on assignment there. Soon after her arrival, Mr. Lampert was working with a platoon of Afghani soldiers. Their mission was to infiltrate an enemy compound. He entered a courtyard during the mission and stepped to his left.
In the next instant, a ringing explosion had stunned the special operations officer.
“It was only really after things had sort of stabilized…that I really understood that I’d lost both my legs,” he remembered in a 2012 interview.
When he woke up in a military hospital, he said, “the first thing I saw was my wife.”
Over the next grueling year and a half of recovery and rehabilitation, he depended on his family and friends. His injuries required a series of surgeries at Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where his family and in-laws soon joined him. He remembered his brother Nate, also a Marine, acting as a kind of bodyguard—not against enemies, but against the exhausting attentions of well-wishers.
“There were a lot of casualties arriving [in the hospital] at that time, and a lot of people would come to visit, to spread their goodwill and say their thanks,” he recalled. “And it was really well-intentioned and really nice to see, but it was also exhausting and draining when I needed a lot of rest. So, my family very much acted as doorkeepers.”
When he returned to Afghanistan in 2012, his brother was with him. At one point in 2013, Mr. Lampert, his wife and his brother served simultaneously in the war zone.
“That put some stress on my family,” he admitted. “But it was really important to me to be able to get back to work. That’s a crucial part of who I am.”
His work in the military, he said, gave him “a sense of purpose and a mission.” On his second deployment to Afghanistan, he lived in a small village helping recruit and train Afghani forces. “Like anything else, the Marine Corps isn’t perfect—but I saw firsthand that they brought better lives to people who had been living under a fundamentalist theocracy,” he said.
Perhaps even more than the mission, however, Mr. Lampert said he values the people.
“The Marines I’ve served with, including my wife and brother, are some of the most impressive people I’ve ever met,” he said. “They were the reason I wanted to [continue serving]. I’ve had some great times, built some great friendships—and that’s been true in the LEAD cohort and Naval Academy as well.”
As a company officer, Mr. Lampert said, he hopes above all else to imbue his midshipmen with empathy and a sense of “the way people work.”
“The technical stuff is important,” he said. “But the quality that will carry them farthest is their ability to connect.” Imparting those “human skills” is part of what the LEAD curriculum addresses.
Working toward an advanced degree is not the only challenge Mr. Lampert has set for himself. He also works hard on physical training.
“It’ll never be like it was,” he said. “But I just did a 5K. I jumped out of an airplane again.”
In response to a suggestion that some people would never jump out of an airplane under any circumstances, much less as a double amputee, Mr. Lampert—who is reticent about his own achievements—just laughed.
“The parachute really does the work for you there,” he said.