What the 2025 Invictus Games Mean to Me

This post takes a different direction from my usual focus on building a business as a military spouse or partner

(Milspo). Today, I'm sharing a personal reflection on the Invictus Games, inspired by last year's coverage and the stories of the competitors. While it's a departure from my typical writing, I hope you'll find it meaningful.

It’s another bonkers Sunday, juggling life as a mum and a military wife, and yet I am excited about the Invictus Games starting next week. Last year's coverage, and the insider view following our wonderful Milspo supporter Emma from Amazon, who’d sponsored the games, properly got me hooked!

The 2025 Invictus Games in Vancouver, Whistler will bring together 500 competitors from 20 nations as well as around 1,000 family members and friends to compete in a series of adaptive sports, including the new winter sports: Alpine Skiing and Snowboarding, Nordic Skiing and Biathlon, Skeleton, and Wheelchair Curling, in addition to the core Invictus Games sports of indoor rowing, sitting volleyball, swimming, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair basketball - pretty cool hey!?

Here’s what their website says…

‘Most of us will never know the full horrors of combat. Many Servicemen and women suffer life-changing injuries, visible or otherwise, whilst serving their country. How do these men and women find the motivation to move on and not be defined by their injuries?

On a trip to the Warrior Games in the USA in 2013, HRH The Duke of Sussex saw first-hand how the power of sport can help physically, psychologically, and socially those suffering from injuries and illness. He was inspired by his visit, and the Invictus Games was born.

The word ‘Invictus’ means ‘unconquered’. It embodies the fighting spirit of wounded, injured and sick Service personnel and personifies what these tenacious men and women can achieve post-injury. The Games harness the power of sport to inspire recovery, support rehabilitation and generate a wider understanding and respect for those who serve their country.

The Invictus Games is about much more than just sport – it captures hearts, challenges minds, and changes lives.’

Most Armed Forces personnel, like my husband, are active and adventurous.

He’s not happy unless he’s travelling to a different country or out running a marathon! He loves his job and the camaraderie that it brings. The RAF, along with his family, means everything to him. In fact, in most of our conversations, when he refers to ‘we’, he very rarely means our family at home – he’s talking about the RAF family. It’s such a big part of both of our lives.

I have always worried about my husband getting injured while he’s operational.

Growing up with a disabled mum meant that I know first-hand the realities of physical disability and how, without the proper support, it can destroy not just the person but the family that surrounds them. They are still the same person inside; it’s just their body that is not working in the way it used to.

I imagine for someone in the Armed Forces to suddenly find themselves unable to do those things that came naturally must be very challenging.

My husband’s role in the Armed Forces, which is incredibly active, has a massive sense of community and camaraderie, which is so important to him.?

If he were to lose this due to injury, physical or emotional, it would be the biggest challenge he and I would ever face.?

Yet I don’t believe the physical challenge is the worst part of a disability; in my experience, it’s the emotional and psychological effect on everyone associated; primarily the family. The frustration of this challenge, and where that leads, is where the real damage is done.

It’s a challenge that I hope we never have to live through. I say ‘we’ not in the way my husband does; I say ‘we’ because, just like any deployment we would go through, we’re a team, as other families are. And that’s where the real worry lies – what effect would it have on our family?

So, as a wife who has spent fifteen years worrying about the ‘what if’, I find that the Invictus Games gives me faith. The Invictus Games offers me, as a family member, hope that if anything does happen and he needed to be discharged from the RAF, he would have an outlet, or at the very minimum, some inspiration that the camaraderie would still be accessible.?

I believe that if we face the challenge of an injury on operations, a team will have our back—a team to keep that sense of belonging, camaraderie and support and enable his need for adventure.

Even though he’s a ‘rufty-tufty’ military man who often disappears to the deepest darkest parts of the world, he’s still my best friend and my future. And our future, whatever shape it may take when he returns from operations, is better for me knowing that there is the support of the Invictus Games.