Born Again

By Vahe Gregorian ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 06/15/2008

Am I dead?

Scott Winkler wondered in a haze after his freak accident with the U.S. Army in Tikrit, Iraq.

The words changed, but the sentiment largely lingered when he emerged from the fog of surgery and knew he was paralyzed from the bottom of his chest down.

"What am I going to do?" he thought.

More than five years later, after hacking his way through months of depression in steps small and giant, forward and backward, the question itself has made an about-face: What can't Winkler do or be?

"Stand-up comedian," he said.

He grinned as he spoke with a handful of reporters at the recent U.S. Olympic Media Summit in Chicago, where he was eager to convey what the U.S. Paralympic Military Program - a joint effort of the U.S. Olympic Committee and U.S. military - has done to help him and hundreds of others regain their senses of purpose and self-worth.

And in his case, it's not merely because he's the world-record holder in the adaptive shot put and one of the elite in discus, events in which he competed Friday at the U.S. Paralympic track and field trials in Tempe, Ariz.

NEW HORIZONS

While such success in what he calls one of his "hidden talents" - he had never touched a shot or discus before 2006 - is plenty fulfilling, it's as much about the journey as the destination for Winkler and other veterans who've aspired to compete Sept. 6-17 in the Beijing Paralympic Games.

To them, the therapeutic powers of training and competing are the difference between existing and living. At times, they're the difference between living and thriving in ways they never knew they could.

"I've done more with one leg than I ever could with two," Melissa Stockwell, a Colorado swimmer who recently became the first disabled Iraq war veteran to qualify for Beijing, told the Denver Post.

In some cases, proponents of the movement say, it may represent the more elemental difference between living and dying.

Shooter Josh Olson tells of a friend who was shattered by his wounds and, in the throes of depression, anger and alcohol, killed himself.

As he spent some 15 months recovering from losing a leg in a rocket-grenade attack in Iraq, Olson himself knew deep feelings of aimlessness and inertia.

"Some days I just didn't want to get out of bed," said Olson, a U.S. Army marksmanship instructor who last month narrowly missed qualifying for Beijing.

Introduced to new goals and horizons by way of the paralympic military program, which offers 24 sports at six camps around the nation, Olson was rejuvenated by the chance to hone a new outlet for his skills, to feel again the camaraderie of shared passions and the chance not just to represent his country anew but to show wounded veterans that "life's not over."

A SPIRITUAL GIFT

The necessity for such sources of hope and structure figures only to increase.

Various reports indicate that as many as half of the more than 30,000 officially wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan are believed to have suffered injuries they will have to contend with the rest of their lives.

Accordingly, by the 2012 London Paralympics, U.S. Paralympics officials estimate that 15 percent of the U.S. team will be veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If Winkler, 35, has his way, he'll still be competing then. The honor of wearing another uniform for his country, he said, is a physical, mental and spiritual gift for him and provided a lift as he tried to find his way in the wake of the episode two months into his second tour of Iraq.

Although Winkler was a cook, he said his injury occurred when he was helping unload crates of ammunition from a truck. As he clutched one, a stray metal band that had bound the ammo hooked his boot. He fell off the truck and onto his back with such impact, he said, that his rear end had twisted upward.

The grotesque sight left frantic friends telling him not to move, which proved redundant, permanently so after his surgery.

Ultimately, though, Winkler has come to refer to losing the use of his legs as "like being born again."

The Pennsylvania native who now lives in Georgia inched his way out of his funk with the help of wheelchair basketball rehabilitation, which eventually led to his 2006 visit to the U.S. Paralympic Military sports camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., and an evaluation that his strength would be perfectly suited to the throws.

The next year, from a "throwing chair," he set the world record. Three times.

Along with discovering his new forte, he has found the means to resume many activities he thought were lost to him forever: fishing, camping and boating, among others. Through his work mentoring veterans and youths, he recently was named an official paralympic ambassador for Beijing.

Through it all, he's come to believe he is in a wheelchair for a reason, says he blames no one for what befell him and would go back to the military in a heartbeat.

No, "Gimpin' Ain't Easy," as his yellow plastic bracelet reads.

"I love that saying ... and because of that you need a sense of humor," he said, smiling and adding, "Things happen in life ... but here I am."

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