Recent Vets Vie for Paralympics

Bruce Finley, a reporter for The Denver Post, wrote that as many as 15 percent of the U.S. Paralympic team will be drawn from the 31,000 men and women disabled by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A portion of Finley's article is reprinted below: vie

Out of the carnage of roadside bomb blasts in Iraq, U.S. Paralympics recruiters are finding new competitors for world-class sports in Beijing and beyond. Every month, John Register, a disabled athlete, travels from the U.S. Olympic Committee headquarters to military medical wards around the country. Commiseration and sympathy aren't the point of these pilgrimages. Register is hunting talent.

He reckons as much as 15 percent of the 235-member U.S. Paralympic team will be drawn from the 31,000 men and women disabled by war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Foremost among those heading to China this summer: Army 1st Lt. Melissa Stockwell. She made her first mark on history four years ago when she became the war's first female combat amputee. Now she has etched a new distinction as the first disabled Iraq war veteran to qualify for this summer's Games in China.

The swimming she embraced during rehabilitation because it "made me feel more like myself" led her into super-intense training. This month at make-or-break time trials, she stunned coaches, shaving 17 seconds offher personal record in the 400-meter freestyle and ranking her fourth-fastest in the world. "I've done more with one leg than I ever would have with two," said Stockwell, 28, a University of Colorado, Boulder, graduate, during a break in her two-a-day workouts at the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

Five other disabled Iraq war veterans are training at U.S. Olympic facilities around the country. And Paralympics officials say a dozen or more Iraq and Afghanistan vets training on their own are likely to qualify for future Paralympics games. The Iraq vets bring new energy to a Paralympics movement that increasingly captures media and corporate attention. Their seemingly relentless optimism, rejection of bitterness, and discipline propels them through tough times that have tipped fellow disabled Iraq vets into darkness.