IJAMSVILLE, MD - Priorities have changed a lot for Dave Plakas over the past year and a half. He talks about his two grown children all the time, and says he's working hard to stay healthy.

Dave is a U.S. Navy Veteran who lost both legs to a different battle: Type II Diabetes. He says this isn't his story.

"I just show the world. It doesn't matter, this is just a mode of transportation just like you wearing a new pair of shoes. I don't think of it as two prosthetics, I think that I have two legs," says Dave.

Instead, his story is enjoying life not as an amputee but as a person.

"Things just start to click that you know things are going to be okay. It may not happen right away, but they do click and it goes, 'wow, I can do this, I can do that.' I'm happy being able to do everything that I normally did as a person with two good legs," says Dave.

He's a regular peer visitor at the hospital, encouraging fellow amputees to find what they love to do and go do it.

"As soon as he is done with a surgery or anything like that, he is jumping right back in. He is ready to go, ready to find a job, very eager and outgoing. Definitely a people person," says Rebecca Rose an employees specialist with Abilities Network.

"I feel great. There's days, and it's pretty much every day now, I don't feel like an amputee anymore. It's all become part of me," says Dave.

Just eight months after he lost his second leg, Dave has hit the golf course. Although he's not into keeping score, he takes the game one step at a time.

Dave has reached out to fellow amputees on Facebook, see his link here.