Dalton native starring on ‘All My Children’

His body was mangled and broken after a battlefield explosion in Iraq, and now the woman he loves thinks he’s dead.

That storyline in the fictional town of Pine Valley has similarities to the life of JR Martinez, a 2002 graduate of Dalton (Ga.) High School and actor on the ABC soap opera “All My Children.”

Mr. Martinez, a 25-year-old Iraq War veteran, was injured when the Humvee he was driving hit a landmine in February 2003. He spent the next 34 months in a San Antonio, Texas, hospital, undergoing more than 30 surgeries and, he says, suffering through thoughts of suicide.

Scars from that explosion are on his face and body, but he has turned his wounding into a motivational speaking career and a three-month stint on “All My Children.” On the soap, he plays Brot Monroe, an injured Iraq War veteran who seeks out his lost fiancee and fellow veteran Lt. Taylor Thompson, played by Beth Ehlers. Lt. Thompson believes Brot is dead, and he allows her to keep believing that after seeing her in the arms of another man.

“I look like a dead man, might as well be dead,” Brot said on Tuesday’s episode. “Maybe I love her enough to let her live her life.”

While recovering in the San Antonio hospital room, Mr. Martinez watched Spanish-language soap operas with his mother, Maria Zuvala, who still lives in Dalton.

“I was stuck in that room,” Mr. Martinez said during a phone interview from the set of “All My Children” in New York City. “There was no remote. The nurse wasn’t gonna help. Even though my mother is 4-foot-11, she’s feisty, and nobody was gonna mess with her.”

Mr. Martinez said he became hooked on soap operas, so when he learned that “All My Children” was seeking a veteran to play Brot, he made some calls and ended up auditioning.

“Sometimes I can’t believe it,” his mother said about her son’s role on the TV soap. “I used to watch that show when he was a baby.”

Saying her son always has been fond of the camera, Mrs. Zuvala recalled a time when he fell out of bed at 4 months old and only stopped crying after she began taking pictures of him.

Now living in New York, where the show is filmed, Mr. Martinez said he loves the city and its energy and diversity.

Mr. Martinez said he leads a single life, but not because of his scars. He said he wants to focus on his career. He hopes to continue acting and write a book, he said, but his dream it to host a talk show. His injuries and recovery have given him purpose to continue to reach a broad audience, he said.

“I want to inspire people in all walks of life,” Mr. Martinez said. “That would just be another way to show people that if you continue to believe and dream and stay positive in life, it’s amazing what life will bring to you and the places it will take you.”