Two American wounded warriors are on their way to become the first combat veterans to ever conquer Mount Everest.

Former Marine Charlie Linville had his leg amputated below the knee after surviving an IED explosion in Iraq in 2011. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chad Jukes lost a portion of his leg after a similar blast in 2006. Now the two men, bonded both in service and ambition, are trying to achieve the impossible.

“There is a pressure to show the world that I can climb Mount Everest,” said Jukes, 31, who, like Linville, has become a skilled mountain climber using a prosthesis. “To say, ‘I have one leg, but I can climb Mount Everest. I have PTSD, but can climb Mount Everest. I have a traumatic brain injury, but I can climb Mount Everest.'”

Linville, 30, said he went from being a strong Marine to having people have pity for him after the amputation.

“Getting to the top I kind of view as vanquishing those demons, showing all these people that, ‘Don’t you have pity for disabled veterans because we’re capable of so much more than you think,'” Linville said.

For adventurers and athletes, climbing Mount Everest is the greatest, more dangerous challenge the planet has to offer. The peak is 29,029 feet above sea level, and climbers must endure subzero temperatures and treacherous terrain to reach the top.

Sadly, many climbers do not safely make it to the summit. There are about 200 corpses littering the mountain trail, many of which are too frozen to recover. Now they serve as both helpful landmarks and grim reminders for climbers attempting the same feat.

Linville and Jukes are not traveling together; they are actually leading two separate climbing teams with different veterans organizations. The two wounded warriors are traveling up the less-traveled north side of the mountain, which is more dangerous than the popular southern trail. Hopefully the two veterans will cross paths and help each other reach the top.

[USA Today]