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Winter Sports Clinic: much more than skiing for disabled veterans.

Article Excerpt
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When most people think of the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, they think of snow skiing. But the slopes were the last thing on the mind of aspiring writers at a creative writing continuing education class.

New York Times best-selling author Anthony Swofford had given a brief lecture and broken the class into small groups for a writing exercise.

A small group of recently-disabled veterans, most patients at the VA's Polytrauma Hospital in Palo Alto, were tasked with identifying a list of the five happiest or best moments of their lives and the five saddest or worst.

Shared on all of the Palo Alto veterans' lists of challenging times was the death of fellow patient Faoa "A.P." Apineru, a friend and leader whose life was cut short as a result of his injury.

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No one mentioned the day they became disabled. The words Iraq and Afghanistan or injury were left out completely--even as one member mentioned the television series...

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