The Army Athlete, and F-ing Ramadan

Today I was reminded about an idea I had before. It's kind of weird when someone expresses the same opinion as you, with neither you nor them being inspired by each other. I know there's a word for that, but my vocabulary isn't tracking. The idea I once had thought about, on more than one occasion, was provoked again as our platoon was learning knowledgeable information about Crossfit. The idea that was said aloud by my LT, was that being a soldier you should be at the same level of fitness as professional athletes in any other major or even college sport.. I really wanted to leave college sport out there, because it will only make the point I'm going to try and make harder. Here I go.

With the job of an Infantryman, or Airborne Infantryman we should be considered nothing short of professional athletes. Perhaps our job could even be considered a sport. It's demands are even higher than most or possibly all other sports. Apparently even Golf. There are a lot of similarities between our job and the jobs of athletes in sports like baseball, football, rugby, hockey, etc., etc. But there are things that separate the us and them. And this is partly where the college thing makes it hard. We don't get paid the big bucks. Not like Peyton Manning, Tiger Woods, Manny Ramirez, or any of those other athletes. College players don't get paid with money sure, but if they perform to a certain level can make up for all of that in two words. Signing bonus. Not too mention that they get college paid for, and don't have to start life in the hole of debt, even if they don't turn pro. The other thing that kind of separates us, is the public eye. We are both in it. We are just the jersey though, the uniform. In professional sports, you have a lot of individuals, going from team to team, recognizable not for the name on the front of the jersey, but the name on the back. Unless you personally know me, if you were to see me in a bar, you wouldn't know I was in the Army unless I was in uniform. You certainly would recognize Terrell Owens in a bar if he wasn't wearing his Bills uniform.

There are still other things that separate us from the big time athletes and sports, but combat is a sport, and Infantryman are the athletes that play it. It is that they know their game time, the playing field they're going to play on. They usually even know their enemy too, in the form of another team. We don't get to know when or what field we are going to play, so our training has to encompass more variables to counter this. We don't get to choose. It's like the Colts preparing to play the Steelers, and then they step out on the field and the Patriots are there waiting.

There are tons of similarities for all sports and ours, especially along the lines of team sports. We all have a place, a position on the team and we all have to perform that said position. The better each of us performs and works together, the better chance we have of winning, living. And like a pitcher sent to pinch hit, we sometimes have to pick up the slack for our teammates. There is however, a greater price to pay for either winning or losing in our job. Even sometimes the ultimate price.

We have to do a lot the same though. Dieting, conditioning, training in specific skills. We have to be in top physical shape to perform our job, play our sport. I know the idea that life and death shouldn't be considered a sport, that we've transgressed as a society from that idealism of Roman Gladiators fighting to the death as a sport in the present day. That we try and think of sports now as something more leisurely and fun, all in the name of entertainment. But there really isn't any difference from our routines to that of an athlete. We practice the skill-sets we need to perform our job, to win. Spending time at the shooting ranges. Working on our posture to shoot when we do ready ups. Just as a basketball player who spends hours shooting free throws. We learn maneuvers and placements of everyone on our team. Where everyone will be when a play is called, we practice it and get the precise movements down. Just like a quarterback and receiver we need to know where the other is going to be, so we can throw that no look pass. Not too mention that we have the stresses, the duress of a situation to handle during all of this. It could be an injured buddy we're carrying. Or perhaps we've just ran 1 kilometer in our gear, and still have to perform the best that we can. For our own lives, and the lives of our teammates. It's not a Super Bowl ring, but it's pretty damn good incentive.

This begs the question, if we do all of these things, train year round to be physically, mentally, tactically prepared to do our job, why don't we get the glory that a major athlete does? You can argue that we don't do it for the glory, that we do it for the name on the front of our uniform, not on the back. And you'd be right, we don't do it for any personal glory, the majority of us anyways. But as exciting of a sport as we play, one that's for all the marbles you could say, with explosions, door kicking, sky diving, climbing walls, running, hand to hand combat, shooting shit up, gator wrestlin'; I could go on and on with all the variables, the endless amount that you can face in our job. Which is why I'm kind of surprised that the American public hasn't demanded demanded a TV show covering everything that's going on in a war zone. That the Army doesn't have a minor league system. That you don't get signing bonus' of millions of dollars to join the military. This is as elite of sport as any of the rest of them. Think about watching a sport where literally anything could happen. The rules are few, and where the playing field is so expansive that it covers the globe, doesn't exclude anyone and has the 'big play' excitement value that a Devin Hester kick return for touch down has. You'd watch. You'd probably even want to play. It's somewhat imitated in paintball and air soft arenas.

I'm not trying to say that people don't want to be soldiers. That we aren't looked up too. In World War II we were maybe even more romanticized than now. More of a celebrity. People do dream of being soldiers, of doing the high speed stuff you see on television shows like the Unit. I was one of them, digging holes in the backyard, climbing trees, playing little soldier. There are still people who dream of this job, who do want to do it. And they do. The guys I went through basic training with, a lot of them top class athletes, playing at division colleges. There are people in the army, who played soccer at UCONN, who played baseball at Mississippi State, or linebacker at UCLA. It's not a game, and I think we all understand that. We are professionals as well as professional athletes. Someday we'll be treated as such.

There's already a start to the league, a couple of teams already set up. Names like or Black Water or Triple Canopy. These are actual organizations, mercenary groups that get paid the big bucks. They make the money along with the sacrifice. And I know at this point I must sound like a war monger, but all competition wouldn't necessarily have to be on the field of battle. About the only thing that you'll see on TV about the military's endurance and physical fitness is the Best Ranger Competition. I'm almost positive you could take the top athlete in any of the major American sports (i.e. football, baseball, basketball, hockey, rugby) drop them into the Best Ranger Competition, and expect them to compete at that level. They wouldn't just not be first, they probably wouldn't be able to complete the event.

Am I expecting the Army, a Federally ran business to start advertising with Coke or Pepsi slapped across the hood of our humvees? I don't. I don't really expect anything different to happen, or for us to be treated any different.

I'm not exactly sure where I was headed with all of this anymore.. All because our opponent interrupted my blog thought process by trying to blow someone on my team up. Good ol' Ramadama Ding Dong! I guess I'll stop rambling and just let you decide..


Mahalo