War helps swell Paralympic team

[TexasLawyer]

War helps swell Paralympic team

August 13, 2007

It is a bizarre byproduct of the disastrous US war in Iraq,
a growing - and seemingly invincible - Paralympic team.
Gerard Wright talks to veterans who have turned to sport.

<snip>

Three years and five months after the war began in March 2003, it has claimed the lives of 3677 American servicemen and women. There have been 27,000 injured, although that may be as high as 53,000, an Associated Press report says. Another report, by the Council on Foreign Relations, says half of those injured will suffer the effects of their wounds for the rest of their lives. An estimated 7500 of the wounded have suffered serious head and spinal injuries. As of January, there had been 500 amputees, nearly a quarter of whom had lost more than one limb.

Apart from its cost, now estimated at between $US1 trillion and $US2 trillion, the Iraq war will leave another legacy, with those it maimed vying, in increasing numbers, for selection in the Paralympic Games in Beijing next year and in London in 2012.

John Register, the founder and development director of the US Olympic Committee's paralympic military program, says the US team for the Beijing Paralympics may include nine Iraq war veterans in a team of about 300. The committee believes as many as 15 per cent of its 2012 paralympic team members will be soldiers wounded in the war in Iraq or the one in Afghanistan.

Winkler was one of those, a cook in his first stint in the army who re-enlisted after a short stint of civilian life. In May 2003 he was unloading ammunition from a truck in Tikrit when the load slipped and he fell off the truck.

<snip>

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[uppityperson]

1. And I thought there was no good news.

extreme sarcasm

[Bluebear]

2. Oh goody, a haul of gold medals out of all this!!!

:extreme sarcasm:

[orleans]

3. so i guess this is the "up" side of war. n/t