National Veterans Wheelchair Games July 13-18 in Spokane, Wash.

Here's a story about competitor Glenn McClary in his hometown paper the Jacksonsville Daily News in North Carolina:

It may be his first national competition, but Glenn McClary (pictured) is in it for the gold.

He’ll be among 11 North Carolinians and more than 500 nationwide competing in the 29th National Veterans Wheelchair Games.

The event, held in Spokane, Wash., begins Monday. It is part of a sports and rehabilitation program for military service veterans who use wheelchairs. The games, presented each year by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Paralyzed Veterans of America, are designed to encourage veterans to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle in spite of their disabilities.

McClary will be competing in basketball, archery, handcycling, air gun and nine-ball.

“I’d like to take gold in all of them,” said McClary of Jacksonville.

At the games, veterans will compete in 17 different sports, including air guns, archery, basketball, bowling, field, handcycling, nine-ball, a motorized wheelchair relay, power soccer, quad rugby, softball, swimming, table tennis, track and field, trapshooting, weightlifting and wheelchair slalom. For the third year, stand-up events will be held in archery and table tennis for athletes who have amputations and choose to compete using prosthetic devices instead of their wheelchairs.

McClary, a six-year Marine Corps veteran who has served in Iraq and Guam, has been an amputee for three years. He tore the ligaments in his left knee playing basketball while on active duty and had several surgeries, including knee fusions.

“In April of 2004, I got a staph infection they were never able to clear up,” he said. “I had the amputation May 16, 2006 … In all I spent over 11 and a half months in the hospital and had 16 surgeries on this leg. I almost lost my life … There was a time I thought I was never going to walk again.”

He said agreeing to the amputation was difficult in spite of what he had been through.

“But on May 17, I got up and I never looked back — I have not sat still yet; I am always on the move,” he said.

In November of the same year he picked up a basketball again and joined the Triangle Thunder Wheelchair Basketball Team, an organized team in Raleigh, and has been training and playing with them ever since.

This past March, McClary joined about 1,500 other disabled veterans in Snowmass, Colo., for the Disabled Veteran’s Winter Olympics Ski Clinic and got hooked on skiing, rock climbing and scuba diving.

“I loved it. I had a ball. If God keeps me here, I’m going to go every year,” he said. “I was nervous at first, but it was pretty easy. The first day we used this small slope, then the second day we went all the way to the top. I said to the instructor, ‘Do we have to go all the way down?’ I’m like, ‘Wow,’ but I did it.”

Participating in the National Veterans Wheelchair Games, the next organized event to follow Snowmass, was a no-brainer for McClary. In June, he began daily training on the new Top End Force Handcycle he received from the VA and has been working on increasing his upper body strength.

“It has many miles on it already,” he said.

He has some experience in each of the competitions he entered except air guns, but he is confident his military training will help him.

“That, I’ve never done before, but to me, it’s just like shooting an M-16 at a target,” he said.

He wants to be a role model and motivate other civilian and military amputees by showing his disability has not held him back. He is a speaker for Hanger Prosthetics in Wilmington, the provider of his prosthesis. Hanger is also one of his sponsors for the event.

“Put God first, follow on with your heart — if there is something you want to do, reach out and grab it,” he said. “When people tell me I can’t do something, that’s when I’ll go out and do it. Becoming an amputee has really changed my life, I think, in a more positive way — I don’t take anything for granted and I try to motivate other people. I thought I was never going to walk again, but look at me now. I’m standing tall and doing it all.”

Johnny Holland, from Goldsboro, will also compete Monday. His been participating in the National Veterans Wheelchair Games for 20 years.

“The highlight of the games is meeting the new veterans, and introducing them to new sports,” said Holland. “Some think once they are in a wheelchair their sport career is over. This gives them hope.”