updated 9:39 p.m. ET Sept. 5, 2008

BEIJING - Melissa Stockwell has her share of coveted medals, like a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

She was awarded those after her left leg was blown off almost 4½ years ago as a U.S. Army second lieutenant during a roadside bombing while on a routine convoy through Baghdad.

Now Stockwell is among 4,000 athletes competing in the Paralympics, where a medal would offer a different kind of affirmation.

“Winning a medal would show how far I’m come since getting the Purple Heart,” said Stockwell, a 28-year-old swimmer with broad, tanned shoulders and a prosthetic left leg painted red, white and blue and flecked with a few stars and stripes.

“The medal would be great, but it would be icing on the cake,” she said. “In my mind I’ve made it here, and that was my goal in the first place.”

Opening on Saturday two weeks after the Beijing Olympics ended, the Paralympics are designed to be a “parallel games” for athletes with a wide range of physical disabilities. The first day of competition is Sunday and athletes will use many of the same Olympic venues. A total of 148 countries will be represented and 472 medal events will be contested — 170 more than the Olympics.

“Heroes are uncovered at the Olympics, but all of the Paralympic athletes arrive as heroes,” said Xavi Gonzalez, chief executive officer of the International Paralympic Committee.

Stockwell, who grew up in Minneapolis and lives in Chicago, is one of two U.S. veterans competing in Beijing after traumatic injuries in Iraq. The other is Scott Winkler, who throws the discus and shot put. Winkler, who lives in Grovetown, Ga., was paralyzed after being injured in 2003 in Tikrit.

Sixteen of the 213 athletes on the U.S. team are service veterans, and officials of the International Paralympic Committee said they had no details on how many military veterans were competing in other delegations.

Stockwell’s life took another turn a few months after the roadside attack. While recovering at the Walter Reed Army Medial Center, her husband, Dick Stockwell, suggested she attend a briefing on the Paralympics. They both served in Iraq, and he’s currently studying medicine at Loyola University Chicago.

“I went to it and obviously I’m glad I did because it changed by life,” she said. “I had dreams of going to the Olympics when I was young as a gymnast, so it’s like I had a second chance at going.”

Stockwell was determined to be active from the outset of her rehabilitation.

During her first four months of hospitalization, she went snow skiing and raced in a wheelchair in the New York City Marathon. A year after her injury, she was out of the hospital and swimming with a club team with one goal — make the Paralympics. She said she was never a strong swimmer, learning to swim as an 8-year-old, which is where her first swimming career also ended. She said at first she struggled to swim 25 meters.

“I knew I had a lot of room for improvement,” Stockwell said.

She’s improved dramatically. In recent trials for the U.S. team, she set an American record in the 400-meter freestyle. She will also swim the 100 free and 100 butterfly.

“She’s not training to mess around,” said her coach, Jimi Flowers. “She’s done everything she can to be successful.”

The Paralympics have given Stockwell direction. In the meantime, she also completed a training course to fit other amputees with artificial limbs.

Stockwell explained: “You are injured, in the hospital and you don’t have your leg and you wonder: ’What can I do now? What’s my life gong to be like now?’ You need to have that goal in mind and work toward it.”

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures A Flyin’ Lion, an onrushing Tide, hard hoops fouls and more. more photos

Stockwell’s best event is the 400 free. That’s also a key event for Natalie Du Toit of South Africa. Du Toit, whose left leg was amputated above the knee after a motorcycle accident in 2001, won five gold medals and a silver at the Athens Paralympics and competed in the Beijing Olympics, placing 16th in the 10-kilometer swim. She’ll be a strong favorite again.

Du Toit and Polish table tennis player Natalia Partyka are the only athletes in Beijing who will appear in both the Olympics and Paralympics. South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, known as “The Blade Runner,” failed in his bid to race in the Olympics but will run in the Paralympics.

“I’ve never thought of any difference between the Olympics and Paralympics,” Du Toit said in an interview. “You train for both, you work hard for both. In the Olympics everyone seems focused on themselves. But in the Paralympics it’s about making friends and also racing.”

Marching in Saturday’s opening ceremony will complete the circle for Stockwell.

“You go to Iraq and you kind of defend the country in uniform,” she said. “And here I am in a different uniform representing the same country.”

MORE FROM OTHER SPORTS

Other sports Section Front

Bowe to make another ring comeback RealClearSports: Economic meltdown could help sports Celizic: Armstrong looks like drama queen on wheels Armstrong fears for his safety at Tour de France Shock re-sign Laimbeer to 2-year coaching deal Abbott, Joubert face off in Moscow Chicago to make pitch to Europe's Olympic delegates Wakefield glad to inspire Japanese schoolgirl Special feature: 2008 has been a year to remember Jeep World on NBC Other sports Section Front   Add Other sports headlines to your news reader: