BBC News

"He took a starring role in the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympics but Rory Mackenzie still cannot quite believe it.

Mr Mackenzie, a former army medic who lost a leg in Iraq, was raised 40ft above the Olympic Stadium to introduce the "Festival of the Flame".

" Crikey, that's me. It's a surreal feeling," he said.

"There is the stadium and there is this little figure in the middle at the stop of the stairs, and that was me"

Cpl Mackenzie was wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in January 2007 when his Warrior Armoured Fighting Vehicle was on its way back to base."

"Rory Mackenzie had his right leg traumatically amputated by a roadside bomb on an operational tour in Basra in 2007 "The ability to slip into an easy or complex routine is our trump card," says Rory Mackenzie. "Other teams will have to learn that. As an amputee rowing, the dark days will have to be incredibly dark to be worse than the days we've already been through. If I'm struggling all I have to do is cast my mind back to being in isolation in hospital for two months while my limb was rotting." "

The Row2Recovery team of wounded servicemen racing across the Atlantic Ocean have had a royal phonecall from Prince Harry.

WOUNDED: THE LEGACY OF WAR

Photographs by Bryan Adams 

WOUNDED: THE LEGACY OF WAR,  PRESENTS PORTRAITS OF YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIERS WHO HAVE SUFFERED LIFE-CHANGING INJURY IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN OR DURING TRAINING. THE LENS BARES WITNESS TO THEIR SCARS, DISABILITY AND DISFIGUREMENT WITH PERHAPS UNEXPECTED DIRECTNESS. AT THE SAME TIME THE IMAGES REVEAL THE SHEER GRIT AND BRAVERY OF THE VICTIMS WHO, DESPITE PERSONAL SACRIFICE, LIVE EACH DAY WITH CONTINUED VIM, VIGOUR AND DIGNITY. WHAT WE SEE ARE PORTRAITS OF INSPIRING INDIVIDUALS WHO WHILST NOT FALTERING HAVE STOOD THE TEST OF WAR AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE. THE IMAGES COME WITH HAUNTING INTERVIEWS WHICH PROVIDE A NARRATIVE TO EACH PERSONAL JOURNEY TO RECOVERY.  - PUBLISHED BY STEIDL