the burnt guy

(James) January was all set for a career in military intelligence, an occupation in which it was made clear that distinguishing marks of any kind, like scars or tattoos, were out of the question. So when in 1991 the University truck he was driving to Fort Bragg crashed and exploded, giving him third degree burns over 85% of his body, "it kind of put paid to my career plans".

January says his recovery was four months physical and "about a year and a half mental. My friends say as I was never fully there but at least I got back to the base-line".

After a period of stuggle, January began to immerse himself in work with burn survivors and the prevention of burn injury. He set up something called "the January Foundation" and now large part of his job now involves accompanying kids who have been burned as they re-enter the school system in his home state of South Carolina.

"My job is to be the cool burned dude", says January. "I go in with a lot of attitude, and I kind of casually let slip that I ride a Harley and I skydive and scuba dive and I'm training to be a pilot. Believe me, when you tell a first grader that you jump out of planes and swim with sharks, their attention span goes from 5 seconds to 15 minutes, and you can use that to tell them not to play with matches and not to pick on Johnnie who's been burned".

"I still have those days when I look in the mirror and think shit or fuck", says January, "but my friend, everyone has those days. The trick is moving on.  You have to play in a game where our society puts forth certain thoughts, good or bad, on what is normal and what isn't, what looks good and what doesn't. But that doesn't mean you can't bend the rules, or break them, to play that game".

  "And if someone tells me I'm ugly, I tell them "Some of us were born that way, and some of us had to get burned".