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After coming home from combat duty in Iraq last year, Cpl. Michael Morgan was in great shape, able to bench-press 250 pounds multiple times. But the 23-year-old had been home only three months when he was mugged and beaten up in August 2008, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.

"I'd say right now I'm 25 percent of who I used to be," said Morgan, from Riverside, Ohio, straining on an exercise machine at Navy Med's temporary gym on Monday afternoon. He walks with a cane but has regained some function in all his limbs.

To get back the rest, Morgan has been participating in basketball and other fitness classes since June at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda with the help of the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, D.C., and U.S. Paralympics, a division of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

The program creates sports practice and game opportunities, including basketball, rowing and volleyball activities, for military veterans who have suffered injuries. The program allows the veterans to compete and set personal fitness goals, and helps them reintegrate into society and regain their former identities. A few who prove their ability in wheelchair basketball and other sports may get the chance to see if they can compete nationally and internationally.

The program began in August through a U.S. Olympic Committee grant of $150,000, which would pay for training, coaches and equipment. NRH announced last month they would expand the program beyond Navy Med and Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

"It's just really an awesome experience," said Heather Campbell, a consultant with U.S. Paralympics who conducts classes for the program at Navy Med and used to be a therapist at NRH. "It makes you want to try that much harder to get them active again."

The classes take place four times a week for patients and personnel at Navy Med, with about 70 people participating each month.

Since Navy Med's previous full-time gym has closed because of base construction, those who want to participate in wheelchair and "stand-up" basketball like Morgan are taken to Walter Reed to participate in games. Tournaments involving both veterans and civilians take place at Walter Reed, with the most recent final game pitting NRH patients against Walter Reed personnel.

"I didn't know who to cheer for," Campbell said.

Being in a competitive environment can help those who otherwise would have to solitary workouts, said Lisa Leach, a therapist at NRH who sometimes sees military veterans join her patients in basketball games at open gym periods.

"You get to actually have the competitive aspect, the trash talk. That's the fun part you can't do in a gym or with a therapist," Leach said.

Military vets who show enough promise in paralympic sports programs like those provided by NRH and U.S. Paralympics have the chance to be put in a program called Emerging Athletes, according to Campbell, and can train with coaches who have a chance to put them on track to be competitive paralympic athletes. A couple of athletes Campbell worked with, for example, were considered for high-level shot put and discus events.

There are also annual Paralympic Military Sports Camps where veterans can improve their skills. The last one took place in San Antonio earlier this year.

But for many involved in the program on the local level, the hoops and rowing practices are about setting goals, trying to get back into the everyday mindset they had before their injuries, and recovering in all possible ways.

Cpl. Jon Fortune, fresh off a workout in the temporary Navy Med gym, participated in basketball practices almost every day before the court closed down on campus, after suffering a herniated disc in 2007. Like Morgan, he's a fan of the basketball program.

"I'd like to get back in better shape, since I've gained about 40 pounds," Fortune said.

Sometimes, the athletic training helps them make progress that has nothing to do with their bodies. Campbell recalled one veteran on the rowing team who, after practice one day at Navy Med, began talking to her about his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"There's still injured soldiers coming home every day. There's obviously a need," she said.