Military Olympians

Military Olympians

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Among the American athletes headed to Beijing this summer, a baker's dozen will come from the country's military services.

The 13—nine from the Army and four from the Air Force—have earned an opportunity to compete in such varied events as Greco-Roman wrestling, race walking, shooting, fencing and modern pentathlon. Seven have previous Olympic experience, and one, Army Maj. Mike Anti, actually has an Olympic medal. (He earned a silver in men's three-position rifle four years ago in Athens.) All of them, however, share a fan base no other U.S. athlete can claim: In Beijing, they'll have an army pulling for them.

"When that flag gets raised ... it's going to mean a lot more to a soldier," said 33-year-old Army Olympian Staff Sgt. Dremiel Byers, a 264-pound wrestler. "I'm serving and representing, and that swells the heart."

With the approval of their respective commanders, many of the 13 military athletes train fulltime at the Olympic facility in Colorado Springs. This city of nearly 400,000 sits along the base of the Rocky Mountains and is home to Peterson Air Force Base and Fort Carson, where Byers is assigned to the Army's world class athlete program. The others are based in Georgia, Texas and an hour or so north of here in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

A sprawling community in Colorado's plains, Aurora offers altitude (it's about 5,400 feet above sea level compared to more than 6,000 feet in Colorado Springs) but virtually no hills. That's ideal terrain for Air Force Capt. Kevin Eastler, the only military race walker to qualify for the Olympics.

Officially, he's a member of his service's world class athlete program, headquartered at Randolph Air Force Base outside of San Antonio. But through a nebulous web of agreements and loopholes, Eastler, 30, is attached to an intelligence squadron at Buckley Air Force Base, just 10 miles from Cherry Creek State Park, where he trains for Beijing with near-religious devotion: about 100 miles of walking and running each week.

That leaves little time for much else. Contact with fellow airmen is limited as a result, Eastler, said. Still, "I love to interact with my squadron mates," he added. "... They look up to me as someone who has succeeded on a different path. I say 'I'm going to compete my best to represent you.'"

Compared to typical service members, guys like Eastler and Byers live an atypical existence. Once these troops are assigned to a "WCAP," they are exempt from combat duty, free instead to dedicate every lucid moment to the extreme physical training—some would say torture—required to make the Olympic team. From the military's standpoint, it's a business strategy. By wearing their Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps gear at competitions both stateside and overseas, these high-profile athletes help boost the services' profiles. And that's good for recruiting; medals are gravy on top.

These athletes, however privileged, are not completely detached from the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning, Ga., which put six soldiers on the Olympic team (three in shotgun, two in rifle, one in pistol), provided weapons training to more than 3,000 combat troops last year, according to the unit's commander, Lt. Col. Frank Muggeo.

"The fact that they're doing the Army mission and competing for the Olympics is very unique," Muggeo said of his soldiers. "I don't know of any other country that does that. ... It's a testament to their determination and their will that they're able to do all that and still compete on a world level with elite athletes."

Understandably, these military Olympians bristle at the suggestion they are "different" from everyone else. Sure, they are isolated from the rest of the force, but they put a lot of faith in the notion they are representing all their comrades, especially those on the battlefield. And they're proud to know those men and women will be watching for them in Beijing.

"We all follow our mission," Byers said. "My mission right now is to go get a medal in the Olympics while the world is watching. Their mission is to come home from Iraq safely. We're both soldiers, and we wear this uniform proudly."