Senior veterans compete in their own Games

13 to represent North Carolina

A three-sport athlete, Bill Bowles can toss a mean horseshoe, swing a wicked golf club, and set a shuffleboard court on fire.

At 88, he has logged more years than the entire U.S. men's badminton team -- most of his life troubled by a hip full of shrapnel he caught in World War II.

So when he flies to Indianapolis on Tuesday for the National Veterans Golden Age Games, don't expect fireworks or sky-walking acts at the opening ceremony. Just a tough old soldier gunning for the gold.

"This is right interesting to go to," said Bowles from his retirement home in Durham. "You'll have a bunch of people there without legs and on scooters."

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the event's prime purpose is to stimulate minds and bodies through good-natured sports rivalry.

Anyone older than 55 who receives care at a VA hospital can compete in the four-day games, which are expected to draw 750 veterans this year, including 13 from North Carolina.

Swimming. Cycling. Bowling. Croquet. Shot put. Discus. Horseshoes. Shuffleboard. Air rifles. Golf ...

"I'll be playing horseshoes one day, shuffleboard one day, air rifles one day ..." said Alton Mangum, 81, a Navy veteran from Bahama. "But my best is probably golf. The last time I went, I came within 2 inches of getting a hole-in-one."

Part of the motivation is showing off their senior citizen physique and showing they can still hurl a discus without an audible groan.

Bowles must bear his shrapnel, but he still manages to score under his age in a round of golf. Mangum endures arthritis in his shoulder and navigates around a heart problem, but he spent last week either at the driving range or setting up air rifle targets for practice.

"I'm only 65, so I'm one of the young guys," said Ed Barry, a former Air Force pilot in Raleigh. "I can go out and walk four miles and hardly break a sweat, and I've done some open-cockpit Indy car racing in the Poconos."

But just as alluring is the chance to swap battle stories. Competitors are grouped by age, and entire categories in the games are dedicated to men whose service dates to World War II.

"The year before last," Bowles said, "I won second place in the over-85 group."

As a young soldier, he was captured in Belgium and marched to a German prisoner-of-war camp, where he toiled for six months until the British liberated him in 1945.

"We walked for about eight days," Bowles recalled. "You didn't get a bed at night. You just got a place to sit down in the evening if you were lucky."

Mangum was just 18 in 1945, and he spent the war in Key West, arranging recreation for the staff.

"Ball teams, that type of thing," he said. "Then we looked after the USO shows, bringing them in."

But Barry saw little recreation by comparison. As a B-52 pilot in the Vietnam War, he flew 350 missions, several of them over Hanoi.

He'll be cycling next week, competing in sprints that last 0.4 and 0.6 miles, for which he has been practicing on a stationary bike.

"For shuffleboard," he said, "I'm just going to go up and hit the thing."

Only one National Anthem will play when the judges drape their medals around the veterans' necks, and most likely, the music will flow from a CD slipped into a boom box.

But these competitors will know all the words, and their salutes will be well-practiced.