Kurt Busch facing career crossroads with newfound inspiration

With practiced briskness, Kurt Busch pulls on a pair of rubber surgical gloves and slips into a disposable hospital smock -- both non-negotiable requirements for a visit to a third-floor room in the Critical Care Unit at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. There is anger in the eyes of the wounded soldier lying on the hospital bed, connected to a wall of IV drips and vital-sign monitors. That's not quite accurate. The bed sheets drawn up to the stomach fail to hide a stark reality -- that the soldier propped up at a 30-degree angle is really half a soldier. An improvised explosive device (IED) in Afghanistan, on his third tour of combat duty, removed his legs and everything else up to the lower torso. The remains of his organs are held in by mesh. But the anger is real, and so is the sense of bewilderment, as the 24-year-old soldier named Joseph contemplates a life without walking, without unaided motion, without sex. On July 9, Joseph is not quite six weeks removed from the explos...