Without war I wouldn’t have had a chance to compete. Don’t get me wrong. I had a skiing accident. I was never in the armed services. I did not sustain an injury while preserving our freedom. I simply owe a debt of gratitude to those who did. Military veterans are largely responsible for disabled sport, for the Paralympics, and for my seamless transition to an active lifestyle after my accident almost nineteen years ago.

Last week, I tried to return part of the favor. At the Hartford Ski Spectacular in Breckenridge, Colorado, I coached some recently disabled veterans. Almost 200 Wounded Warriors, mostly amputees representing a small percentage of those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, learned to ski, race, or teach. Seeing the recently disabled made the war more personal. I wondered if these newly injured individuals might bring significant change as their predecessors had.

On July 29^th 1948 the Paralympics were born, though at the time they were called the Stoke-Mandeville Games, the brainchild, of neurosurgeon Sir Ludwig Guttman. Guttman believed that physical activity could improve the health and lives of the disabled vets. Before World War II people with spinal cord injuries had a less than 20% chance of survival. Most died in their beds from sores or infections. Guttman said, “When I arrived at Stoke, those with spinal cord injuries were thought of as hopeless cripples.” He changed their outlook with sport.

The Stoke-Mandeville Games began the same day as the London Olympics. After a twelve-year hiatus for World War II, it was a rebirth for the Olympics, and an opportunity for the disabled veterans. The events paralleled each other, separated by about a one-hour car drive. Parallel led to Paralympics. It’s not an event that is almost the Olympics, but one that happens on a parallel plane. The hopes and expectations are just as great. The comments on human strength and ability are just as poignant.

For many disabled athletes, Stoke-Mandeville remains a right of passage. I’ve competed on the track there twice. The barracks housing, communal showers, disco tent, lawn bowls, and spilled beer smell on the track’s third turn, as patrons sip pints and watch the races, make it distinctive. Damp, penetrating winds usually howl, though one year I competed during the British week long summer. It’s then that you realize there’s no air conditioning, and that you are lucky to win the ice cube lottery if you have one floating in your water.

Our lives are much easier now. When I visited Stoke, I worried about track surface and wind conditions. Would I be able to go fast? Would I go fast enough to qualify for the Paralympics? After World War II, they worried about staying alive. Guttman believed that sport could improve the lives of the newly disabled. His hypothesis is obvious now. We take it for granted, but most of us don’t understand the debt of opportunity that we owe to those who went before us.

When I broke my back in a skiing accident, I didn’t miss one ski season. Less than a year after becoming paralyzed, I began to ski in a monoski. The equipment existed for me because of the Vietnam War. Talk about an unpopular war. Talk about young Americans, who wrapped themselves in patriotism only to be spit on when they returned. These are the men that I have to thank for maintaining my quality of life, which I so often say, has not diminished because of the accident. In fact, it might have increased depending on how I choose to look at it. I can’t walk, but I never would have been the best in the world at anything. I won World Championships in both skiing and wheelchair racing. I wouldn’t have met Presidents. I wouldn’t have competed on an international level for fifteen years.

I owe a debt to people like Kirk Bauer, whose organization Disabled Sports USA, has organized the Ski Spectacular and numerous grassroots initiatives for the last forty years. I owe a debt to people like Jack Benedick, who led the US Disabled Ski Team and strove for integration and equality—not only did he strive for it, he fought for it. He’s the man who said in my first meeting with the team, “fourth place doesn’t count.” We were about medals, about winning, about being the best—not the best in some separate, disabled way, but in a way that people had to take notice because few if any expected as much from themselves as we did under Jack. I owe a debt to Jim Martinson, who developed the very first monoski that I ever used. My monoski came in a box. Jim’s first monoski came in a picture in his mind. I’m sure it was an incomplete picture. I’m sure that others told him he was crazy. I’m glad he didn’t listen. Jim’s transition into the disabled world was far from seamless because he had to invent his new path. For me, years later, not only did I have the equipment to continue to ski, race, water ski, handcycle, play basketball and tennis, but I had role models and heroes like Jim. Vietnam vets modeled their rehabilitation after the Germans and Austrians following World War II.  They skied. Then they started ski schools and race teams. We followed and benefited.

Guttman believed sports could improve the health and lives of disabled vets. It’s unfortunate, but the need continues. Numerous newly injured veterans will attempt to improve on the work of people like Kirk, Jack, Jim and many others. We still have yet to achieve Guttman’s concept of full integration. Paralympic sport remains largely obscure. In many instances, the disabled are separate from society. Maybe we will get an infusion of spirit from this new group of youngsters. I don’t know. What I do know is that we have a debt to those who went before us. We have a debt to live up to their legacy for the gifts and opportunities that they gave us.