U.S. Olympic Committee Reaches Out to Wounded War Veterans for Paralympics

This week, Stuck moved from his home state of Pennsylvania to Oklahoma to embark on another mission to represent his country: He wants to compete in the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing.

Stuck, 23, will live and train with the U.S. men's sitting volleyball team at the University of Central Oklahoma. He will be the first to benefit from a new U.S. Olympic Committee program that allows military veterans interested in preparing for the Paralympics to be resident-athletes at various USOC-affiliated training sites…

"Representing the United States in any way, shape or form that I can is just great," said Stuck, an Army corporal at the time of his injury. "That's one reason why you sign up for the military — you do what you believe in. You get injured, and then you just take it to a whole new level."

The USOC, which formed its U.S. Paralympics division in 2001, will officially announce the program Friday and begin accepting applications at www.usparalympics.org.

The goal is to have 25 veterans in residence by July and 50 by next year. The USOC is hoping military veterans compose 10%-15% of future U.S. Paralympic teams, said U.S. Paralympics chief Charlie Huebner. The budget for the program is $8.1 million over the next four years.

In the past three years, U.S. Paralympics has held sports clinics and camps for disabled veterans.

Stuck attended two of those camps. A prep soccer player, he also plans to train for track.

"With me getting this opportunity and the publicity that comes with it," he said, "it helps people understand that, hey, everybody's human and certain people just deal with different things in their life."

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