MIAMI — Pinned down by gunfire in Ambush Alley, Army Staff Sergeant Greg Reynolds thought he surely would die in the desert dust on the road to Mosul, Iraq, in 2003.

But the Dighton, Mass., native survived — only to have his left arm sheared off five years later in a motorcycle/car accident in Swansea, just miles from his home. The other driver, James Viera, 75, a Korean War veteran from Tiverton, R.I., was unhurt, but Reynolds’s injuries were horrific. He would not return for his scheduled second tour of duty in Iraq.