Amputee vet picked for Beijing Paralympics

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Amputee vet picked for Beijing Paralympics




The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Apr 7, 2008 7:49:02 EDT

MINNEAPOLIS — As a young gymnast, Melissa Stockwell always dreamed of going to the Olympics.
She never knew that one day she would wind up as a member of Team USA, or that it would be as a trailblazing one-legged swimmer in the Paralympic Games.
“I was very competitive and really into it,” Stockwell said of her days as a gymnast at Eden Prairie High School in suburban Minneapolis. “I remember going out to the Olympic Training Center and hoping to one day be here. Now I have a second chance.”
Stockwell, who as an Army lieutenant in 2004, lost her left leg to a roadside bomb in Baghdad, was one of 18 women named to the U.S. Paralympic Swim Team on Sunday, becoming the first Iraq war veteran to be selected for the Paralympics.
No Iraq or Afghanistan veterans were among U.S. disabled athletes in Athens in 2004 or Turin in 2006



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