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MARQUETTE -- It's one of the most dangerous jobs in Afghanistan.

Marquette native Mark Zambon is a staff sergeant in the Marines specializing in disposing of explosives.  In January, he lost his legs to an explosion, and it's not the first time he's been wounded in his six tours of duty spanning an eight year Marine career.

"There's really nothing so glamorous, I mean you work the scene, very meticulously, very methodically, you're eliminating threat options..."

And just like that, very matter-of-fact, he explains to me the daily combat happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.  When I ask him why he enlisted, he simply replies that this is what he was meant to do.

"You're always a part of a team, it's always a mutual effort, so what comes first is looking out for who's on your team, their safety, their wellness, and getting the job done," he says.

But his particular job is dangerous, it doesn't come out without risk.

He found that out last year.  He lost two of his fingertips when a bomb detonated in his left hand.

Then you look down at where Mark's legs used to be before truly understanding the sacrifices he made for our country.

"The lead sweeper had missed the device; it was all rubble so it was really hard to pick out a device easy to conceal in that spot," Mark explains.  "And then I stepped on it.  It didn't knock me out, I did like a forward somersault, hit the ground."

For almost seven months, as long as each of his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mark's been undergoing extensive rehab in California, learning how to use his new prosthetic legs.

"It's like a sea of changes you know, so many new things and a temporary loss of so many things, too, that you really kind of have to condition your mind for."

One of Mark's favorite pastimes is riding his motorcycle.  Since losing his legs in January, he's been working to ride one on his own again.

"In my mind, in this recovery, conquering it is accepting it, and I have all these wickets in my mind of levels of function that lead up to that, and they're all small things."

Some are big things though.  Right now Mark is a part of The Heroes Project, an organization that works with veterans, soldiers, and military families.

This wounded warrior is planning to climb Mount Aconcagua in Argentina in February.

"It's a scary thing, because it's uncertain and no one else can travel that path but yourself, and when you get to these areas where you're achieving additional functions or getting back what you had, it's great, it really is," Mark tells me.

Mark plans to decide before the climb what he'll be doing with the rest of his life.  Right now, he's thinking of teaching or going back to school, all the while remembering his time with the U.S. Marine Corps.