WESTERN SKIES - September 27, 2005

*** PARALYMPIC MILITARY SUMMIT ***

ERIC WHITNEY: Last weekend, the U.S. Olympic Committee teamed up with Fort Carson for the inaugural Paralympic Military Summit. The idea is to help disabled veterans, many of them amputees from the war in Iraq, move on with their lives. More than thirty men and women had a chance to try out sports from cycling to sled hockey. KUNC's Nancy Greenleese was there, and has this report.

[sound of gunshots]

NANCY GREENLEESE: Jose Ramos has a target in sight. The former Marine sharp shooter peers down an air rifle, aiming for tiny, black circles some thirty feet away inside a Fort Carson gym. But the strapping, twenty-five year old isn't standing. He's stooped over a table, the gun steadied by layers of foam. His right hand is on the trigger and his left lies underneath, immobile. This is his prosthetic arm. But Ramos won't get any pity for wayward shots from tablemate, Tim Horton.

JOSE RAMOS: Hey, there's a couple of shots on my target that don't belong to me.

TIM HORTON: Cry me a river. This is combat, pressure! Shoot now! Shoot now!

GREENLEESE: These military men and women are fired up about competing as they try eight different Paralympic sports. That's far more than when the first wave of World War II veterans launched the movement. Ramos says he's training for a triathlon and ran a marathon just three months after he lost his arm.

RAMOS: When I'm doing sports, it's probably about the only time when I actually feel whole as a person.

GREENLEESE: His world shattered in Iraq. Ramos' unit was getting ready to embark on a reconnaissance and surveillance mission in a village west of Fallujah when insurgents fired off a rocket.

RAMOS: When it hit, when it hit my arm was kind of dangling there. So I had to carry my own arm back. So I knew that it would be gone when I got back. I didn't wake up and not have my arm, I knew it was going to be gone.

GREENLEESE: Each man and woman tells a similar story of loss. Many have spent months receiving physical rehabilitation. The psychological wounds have often been harder to heal. Almost two years ago, Jerry Ezell suffered a traumatic brain injury and right leg paralysis when a homemade bomb blew up his convoy in Iraq. He retired from the Army and returned home to Oklahoma.

JERRY EZELL: For the first year, I was real timid to walk out in the grass, afraid I might step in a hole. But, I just thought about it. I mean you think about it, you're afraid to walk in the yard. You know, that's no way to live.

GREENLEESE: The former high school jock participated in a disabled athletes' sports festival in Oklahoma where he received an invitation to the summit. Ezell says learning the sports has been more challenging than frustrating.

EZELL: It's kind of like when you're in Pee Wee football. Your first time ever trying it. You have an idea because you've seen it on TV, but you've never done it so everything's brand new as you go along.

GREENLEESE: One of the biggest adjustments is getting used to their equipment. The athletes tweak their legs like NASCAR mechanics with engines. But, inevitably, they fall or tip in a chair. John Register, who heads the U.S. paralympic military program, says the summit provides a safe, comfortable environment to learn. The 2000 paralympic silver medalist in the long jump says this encourages the athletes to begin talking about risk-taking.

JOHN REGISTER: I can try this "sit volleyball thing." What's that all about? I've always played volleyball standing up. And now you're sitting down on the court and you're slamming and you're talking trash. And the game is just on again. And the game is not just a sport, but the game is life.

[sound of chanting "Let's go red"]

GREENLEESE: Sweaty amputees are sliding across the volleyball court floor. Players scooch to the ball, flesh squeaking on the floor, and lob it back and forth over the lowered net.

[sound of volleyball game in progress]

GREENLEESE: Four match points later, the red team beats the blue team and later trounces a team of able-bodied soldiers. Carla Best, a left leg amputee, is on the losing team. But the former Denver resident says she collected an even bigger victory at the Velodrome.

CARLA BEST: I was up on a bicycle and I was doing laps and I was loving it. I had the biggest grin on my face, I looked like a dork, didn't care. I just know there's nothing I can't do. Those little perceptions that I had in my head were "No, I can't do that because it's going to be too hard." I don't have that now. Now it's like, "OK, I'll try that."

GREENLEESE: The athletes say coming so close to death has energized their lives. Many are more active than before their injuries and none interviewed regrets their military service. They'll return to rehabilitation hospitals or home, armed with newfound inspiration. Some even hope to compete in or at least attend the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. One soldier said he'd even be happy as a towel boy.

For Western Skies, I'm Nancy Greenleese at Fort Carson.