sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ap-iditarodauction&prov= -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 1/11/2008
Last Visited: 1/12/2008
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The reaction is always the same when Army Capt. Darrick Gutting asks his war-wounded veterans if they would like to ride in the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race as part of a spiritual retreat to Alaska.
"Oh yeah, absolutely, sir," they inevitably tell Gutting, a chaplain at the Pentagon-run Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who orchestrated a new addition to the race's annual Idita-Rider auction.
Thanks to Gutting, six amputees in the Army, Marines and Air Force who are recuperating at the Washington, D.C., hospital will be selected to ride with mushers in the March event in Anchorage.A long list of would-be Idita-Riders who were injured in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is still being whittled down.
"It's really about bringing two things together -- my soldiers and my passion for Alaska," said Gutting, cousin of 2004 Iditarod champion Mitch Seavey.