Sun series: Sports and the military
Every spring, many of Maryland's young athletes graduate from high school and embark on military careers. While they enter military service having performed on teams and are in excellent physical shape, there is uncertainty about how an athletic background prepares them for war. Nothing can steel these former athletes for everything they encounter on battlefields. Some come home with lost limbs, lost hope and other disabilities. Some don't come home at all -- except to be buried.
Sun series on former area athletes who served their country and died in the war in Iraq or Afghanistan
July 18, 2007
Project assists wounded vets
The Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project is a partnership between Disabled Sports USA and the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit organization that helps injured combat veterans and tries to raise awareness about the difficulties troops face when they return home. Representatives from the Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project visit soldiers around the country in facilities such as Walter Reed Army Medical Center, often just weeks after the soldiers arrive, and encourage them to use sports as part of their physical and emotional rehabilitation.
Third in a series
Sacrificing all
Some starred on their high school athletic teams. Some barely received any playing time. But each served his country and died in Iraq or Afghanistan.
July 17, 2007
Moudry: ever the runner, even in Iraq
Staff Sgt. Christopher Moudry loved to run. But there's not much room in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, so Moudry liked to stretch his legs when he emerged from his tank.
July 17, 2007
From swim team to Navy
The Navy Seal wannabes didn't notice him at first -- the quiet, dark-haired man scaling the diving tower at their training tank in San Diego. He wasn't part of the SEALs' elite group, so how good an athlete could Austin Koth be?
July 17, 2007
More series profiles
The lacrosse stick
As a youngster, Damion Campbell and his lacrosse stick were inseparable. He took it everywhere in his Northwest Baltimore neighborhood - to the library, to the store and to Garrison Middle School. Once, he tried to sleep with it under his pillow.
July 16, 2007
Second in a series
Away games
The northern edge of Fallujah, Iraq, was no place to be on Thanksgiving Day 2004.
July 15, 2007
First in a series
Playing field to battlefield
Running has always been an integral part of Kevin Diggs' life, from a childhood accident in which he tripped, knocked his head against the corner of a table and earned an inch-long scar beneath his left eye to a high school career in track and cross country for Southwestern High.
July 15, 2007
Painful rites of passage
When a grenade came rolling at Rocky Bleier during a fierce enemy assault at the height of the Vietnam War, his football instincts took over.
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The Baltimore Sun's All-Metro selections in baseball, softball, boys and girls lacrosse, and boys and girls track and field. Other teams are listed below:
