In 1988, Eddie Keating seemed to have turned his life around.
After drifting somewhat in his later teens - getting into minor scrapes with the law and smoking marijuana - Eddie had joined the U.S. Marines, where he was happy, successful and thriving.But his life suddenly took a 180-degree turn for the worse when he was shot in the head during a training exercise, leaving him paralyzed and comatose.
The struggle of Eddie - and his parents - to fight their way back is dramatized in the NBC movie "Moment of Truth: To Walk Again" (8 p.m., Ch. 2).
(And keep an eye on newcomer Cameron Bancroft, who turns in an excellent performance as Eddie Keating.)
Although the movie has come under some criticism for being overwrought, it's difficult to imagine too many ways that life could take a more dramatic turn. And in addition to the physical struggle, the Keatings had to battle Veterans Administration doctors and administrators who wanted to do little more with Eddie than warehouse him.
"In the blink of an eye, your life can change. You just don't take anything for granted," said Eddie's mother, Carole. "Also, I learned that you just have to fight for what you want. Don't take no for an answer."
As portrayed in the movie, Eddie's parents (played by Blair Brown and Ken Howard) had to do a lot of fighting to get their son the treatment he needed.
"We had a lot of leverage in what we wanted to do because Eddie's was a combat-related injury that was negligence by the Marine Corps," Carole Keating said. "There are many people out there in the VA system who do not have that kind of leverage where they can get done what they want."
Armed forces personnel who are injured in off-duty accidents must pretty much accept whatever the VA offers them, she said.
"I also saw other young men in the VA system when we were there who were not getting the kind of treatment (they needed), whose parents had to accept what was offered, and really had no say in it. So, that part of the system upsets me. We have an ax to grind."
Carole Keating, a particularly determined woman, wasn't shy about using whatever leverage she could muster.
"I would just threaten them, like `Well, I'm going to go on `Phil Donahue' or `I'm going to go on `Oprah Winfrey,' and I'm going to tell the world what the Marine Corps did to my son if you don't do this or that or the other,' " Carole Keating said. (That particular threat is portrayed in the movie.)
"And you'd be surprised how fast I'd get some feedback."
Eddie Keating made remarkable progress in his recovery, although he is permanently paralyzed from the waist down. But he is a participant in a VA-funded program that uses electric wires and a computer to stimulate and control muscles and allow the patient to walk again.
"I progress pretty much every day," said Eddie, whose attitude is upbeat and optimistic. "I have use of both arms. I can't walk without my computer on. I have all my upper body strength and everything else.
"I mean, I can't walk. I'm in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. That's the cards I've been dealt."
Carole, the proud mother, is even prouder of her son's participation in the experimental program, comparing him to an astro-naut taking chances to advance science.
"The long-term effects of this we don't know yet. But he's doing a service for mankind. . . . In 10 to 15 years, if what he's doing now works, there's not going to be anybody in a wheelchair," she said.
And, while the movie - and their lives - have a more or less happy ending, the scars remain.
"It is a very hard, traumatic, painful experience," Carole Keating said. "And even though we go on with our lives and we're happy - and we have a good life now - that pain is there. My life is changed forever, his life, our family has changed forever."
Somewhat surprisingly, Eddie said he has no bitterness at all toward the Marines.
"Oh, I love the Marine Corps," Eddie said. "I don't blame the Marine Corps for anything. I mean, it was a simple accident. That's my opinion.
"Now, my mom's (opinion) is much different from mine."
"I tell him that in the Marine Corps, in boot camp, you're almost brainwashed," Carole said. "They take down your brain, and then they rebuild it to the fact that you are invincible.
"Well, that's wonderful in battle. And he has a good outlook now. But the point is, the Marine Corps was negligent . . . in how they train these young men."
She objects to the fact that the Marines use live ammunition in their training exercises, and rejects their argument it's necessary to simulate battle conditions.
"I said, `So , this is your thinking? It's OK to gamble with your top Marines in practice and think that you may save lives later?' " said Carole, who added that she's unhappy that - because it's a government entity - the Marine Corps cannot be held liable for its negligence.
Still, she said she doesn't hate the Marines Corps, calling her son's shooting "an unfortunate accident."
"You really can't make a blanket statement and say that if he hadn't been in the Marine Corps it wouldn't have happened with something else," she said. "I'm grateful that the Marine Corps training gave him the strength and the ability to believe he was invincible because I think that that strength pulled him through the worst time."
As for Eddie, he's made a successful life for himself. He's attending college, works as a model and is a championship wheelchair athlete.
And he sums his attitude up as, "Life is short. Play hard."