ELKINS PARK, Pa. (AP) _ The doctor was telling the teenage war veteran from Uganda that he could alternate between two attachments to his new prosthetic arm: a hook or a hand.

The hook "doesn't look as beautiful," said Alberto Esquenazi, the physician who leads MossRehab's Regional Amputee Center and who also wears a prosthetic arm. "But you can do more with a hook."

Ronald Okello, 18, wasn't buying it. But he certainly wasn't arguing either. There were just too many new possibilities to explore.

"Will I be able to write, to wash — what about (cleaning) my uniform?" Okello said. "I want to ride a bike."

The teenager should be able to wash himself better and clean his school uniform, Esquenazi answered, but not write so well. And the bike depended on whether Okello could ride one before he lost his arm.

It's been a long ordeal for Okello, who said he was abducted into a rebel Ugandan militia at age 9 and forced to fight for four years until he lost his arm. He recalled watching a fellow soldier hack his father to death.

Now, with the help of a Philadelphia philanthropist and aid groups, Okello has returned to Uganda in east Africa with a new, $10,000 prosthetic right arm and memories of a bustling America unlike any place he imagined.

Helping Okello, though, isn't as simple as it might appear. His arm is expected to last about five years if it isn't damaged or worn out sooner. And there's no guarantee he will get a replacement. The euphoria he feels now could turn to anguish later if he can't get more care.

But that seemed far from his mind as he was being fitted with his prosthesis at MossRehab in Elkins Park. Okello has discovered his new arm helps him balance better when playing soccer. And he's already imagining what he will say to his friends at school about laundry: "'No more begging you guys to wash, because I can do it myself.'"

Okello, an ethnic Acholi, was born in the midst of a bitter, 21-year civil war. The conflict dates from 1986 when current President Yoweri Museveni's army ousted the first Acholi president, Tito Okello (no relation).

Acholis launched rebel movements, including the Lord's Resistance Army, led by the mercurial Joseph Kony, who filled his ranks by abducting children as young as 9. Personal accounts and independent reports document how boys were forced to be soldiers and made to kill.

Rebels and the government have largely stopped fighting since another attempt at peace began in 2006.

But both sides have done great harm. During the war, an estimated 66,000 children were kidnapped, and 200,000 from the Acholi and Lango groups have died.

Okello was 9 years old in 2000 when his mother sent him on a four-hour trek to the market to buy soap. Rebels emerged from bushes on a dirt road and captured him.

At first, Okello cooked and fetched firewood; later he was given an AK-47.