UVA Air Force cadet turns years of recovery into a mission to serve

November 14, 2025
Samuel Price running a path on UVA grounds.

After a series of leg surgeries as a child, U.S. Air Force Cadet Maj. Samuel Price runs with the best of them now, getting top marks in his physical tests as an ROTC cadet. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications.)

Samuel Price does not take his ability to walk for granted.

Price, a third-year biomedical engineering major at the University of Virginia, is a cadet major in the Air Force ROTC program. When he was born, the bones in one of his legs were twisted out of their usual positions.

“It forced my foot to jut out to the right, and I had really bad knock knees,” the Burke resident said. “My mom said I walked like a baby bird. Whenever I tried to walk or run, I had a lot of trouble. I got bullied off of my basketball team when I was 5, things like that. It was really rough.”

During a check-up, a doctor X-rayed Price’s legs.

“They discovered that my bones were all twisted in the wrong way, and I had pretty major reconstructive surgeries to fix that,” Price said. “They cut my tibia, fibula and femur and then inserted titanium rods to correct it. It was about a six-month recovery period from that. I missed a lot of school. And then I got two knee surgeries and a couple months of recovery period for each of those two.”

Price stretching before going for a run.

Price stretches following a training run. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications.)

His leg surgeries were performed at Fort Belvoir’s medical center when Price was 11, and the knee surgeries when he was 13 and 15. 

“I would say the fall of my sophomore year of high school onwards is when I really started to feel like a ‘normal kid’ physically,” he said.

After convalescence came the hard work.

“I had to work for years to relearn how to run and get up to the proper physical shape,” Price said, noting that his efforts paid off and he has received maximum scores in his most recent physical tests.

“I wouldn’t be able to be an ROTC cadet without any of those surgeries,” he said.

“Cadet Price exemplifies the ideals of service and leadership,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Austin New, the operations officer for Air Force ROTC at UVA. “He consistently balances the demands of academics, training and community engagement, setting a standard for his peers and for the program. The Air Force needs more officers like Cadet Price.”

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Price led the new cadet orientation this past summer, commanded about 10 color guard performances and has volunteered at community organizations and nonprofits.

In Price’s family, military service and Air Force ROTC are traditions. Price’s mother, Amie Welser, and her three siblings commissioned as Air Force officers through UVA’s ROTC program, and his father was part of Air Force ROTC at Pennsylvania State University. His mother retired as a major and his father as a colonel.

Both of his grandfathers served more than 20 years in the military, and two of his great-grandfathers served during World War II.

“My great-grandpa, Everett Rae, was in the Army Air Corps, and he got captured on the Pacific front,” Price said. “He was in the Bataan Death March and was a prisoner until the end of the war. He died when I was 5, but I did get to meet him. He was a really sweet man.”

Price standing at attention in his ROTC uniform.

Price is a biomedical engineering major, inspired by the surgeon who worked on him years ago. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications.)

Price plans to become an orthopedic surgeon, drawing inspiration from Dr. Syed Imraan Ahmed, the now-retired U.S. Army colonel who performed the surgeries to correct his legs. Ahmed also advised his young patient on his current course. Price even served as a Boy Scout leader for Ahmed’s children.

“I ran into him at a Boy Scout meeting when I was applying to colleges,” Price said. “He told me, ‘If you want to be a doctor, you should do biomedical engineering,’ and the Air Force offered biomedical engineering scholarships. So I figured, why not?”

Price shadowed Ahmed at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., during the summer between his first and second years at UVA.

“What I learned most from this experience was the importance of bedside manner and showing empathy to patients and their families, considering that if they are seeing an orthopedic surgeon, it is often to deal with problems that have a major effect on their daily lives,” Price said.

“I would very much like to spend as much time as possible, probably the full 20 years, serving as a doctor within the Air Force, as I want to serve military members and their families as I was served,” Price said.

Media Contacts

Matt Kelly

University News Associate Office of University Communications

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