Warrior Games planned for wounded vets

WASHINGTON - Some 200 wounded active duty members and military veterans will compete in the inaugural Warrior Games May 10-14 in Colorado Springs, Colo., Defense Department officials announced Thursday.

The U.S. Olympic Committee will host the games, and events will include shooting, swimming, archery, track, discus, shot put, cycling, sitting volleyball and wheelchair basketball, Army Brig. Gen. Gary Cheek, commander of the U.S. Army Warrior Transition Command, said at a Pentagon news conference.

Athletes will be recruited from each of the military services, including the Coast Guard, through an independent selection processes.

The competition is open to military members and veterans with bodily injuries as well as mental wounds of war, such as post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury.

The Army will be represented by 100 soldiers chosen out of a pool of almost 9,000 wounded warriors. The Marine Corps will send 50 competitors, while the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard will send 25 each, Cheeks said.

"The value of sports and athletic competition and the fact that you can get great satisfaction from what you do is really what we're after," he said. "And we're really looking for this opportunity to germinate this program in May and have it get bigger and stronger."

The goal isn't necessarily to determine the best athletes, but rather to maximize wounded veterans' abilities, and to show them their true potential through competitive sports, he explained.

Adaptive sports rehabilitation has proven time and again to have a positive, long-lasting effect on wounded warriors, said Charlie Huebner, Paralympics chief for the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Huebner noted that adaptive sports have positive effects on wounded veterans in their continued education, family life and in the work force.

(Compiled from report by Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden, American Forces Press Service)