Athletic games and events of competition or exhibition for those in wheelchairs is now in its 24th year. These National Veterans Wheelchair Games grew out of an historic wheelchair sports involvement of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Sports with participants in wheelchairs started when the Second World War ended, when veterans young and disabled started to play basketball in their wheelchairs while they recovered in VA hospitals all over the country. Sports in wheelchairs soon went beyond basketball to track and field, swimming, archery, and bowling. A number of associations for wheelchair sports sprouted.

Now veterans in wheelchairs participate in competition and exhibitions in air guns, archery, basketball, weightlifting, bowling, nine ball, motorized rallies, exhibition power relay and trap shooting, quad rugby, two slaloms, power chair 220 (one division for hand controls, one for head and mouth control), softball, hand cycling, swimming, track and table tennis. Veterans with disabilities including paralysis continued to use their wheelchairs to participate in sport in increasing numbers. In 1980, finally, the Veterans Administration set up its recreation therapy services, which focused on making people aware of how wheelchair athletics helped rehabilitation. Now therapists at the VA use wheelchair sports as a tool for therapeutic treatment of these disabled veterans.

To compete in any of these sports with their wheelchairs, these athletes have to qualify and be placed competitively with others whose disability degrees are similar. Each is given a medical exam for this purpose. Three quadriplegic classifications emerge, as well as four paraplegic classifications. Amputees get divided up by the degree of their amputation. Victims of stroke, multiple sclerosis and other such disabilities are also classified according to their impairment level. 1981 debuted the National Veterans Wheelchair Games. The year became known as the "International Year of Disabled Persons. The first event took place in Richmond Virginia at the city's VA medical center. 74 disabled veterans brought their wheelchairs from 14 states to compete in such sports as billiards, table tennis, weightlifting and swimming. What this initiated among those who participated was the strength of camaraderie and having something in common. Hundreds of disabled veterans now compete in the Games every year.

The size and complexity of the games had become so vast by 1985 that medical centers were having a hard time finding the finances and other resources to host them. The Paralyzed Veterans of America stepped in as co-sponsor and then went to businesses to ask them if they would co-sponsor as well. Now these corporate sponsorships help keep the games going and growing, with more sports and increasingly greater numbers of disabled veteran participants. Disabled veterans in the UK became part of the games as of 1987. Now they take part each year. A new organization known as the British Ex- Services Wheelchair Sports Association, has hosted international wheelchair games in the UK three different years since 1994.

The National Veterans Wheelchair Games is now the biggest annual sports event for those in wheelchairs anywhere in the world. Now more than 500 athletes bring their wheelchairs from nearly every state, from Puerto Rico and from the UK to compete. The 2004 games were held in St. Louis Missouri, the 2005 games in Minneapolis Minnesota. The 2006 games will be held July 3rd through 8th in Anchorage Alaska. Right now the folks putting the games together are busy soliciting the 200+ volunteers they will need to help with meals, with transportation, setting up the sites, keeping scoring, timing, take photos, and giving out water. Those interested in volunteering can apply online. The VA and the PVA both remain committed to the games and their ability to help rehabilitate these disabled veterans.

Val Towley is the webmaster of Wheelchairs Net which is an excellent place to find wheelchairs links, resources and articles.