In the U.S.A. – and likely elsewhere – it is
not uncommon to hear of corporate leaders or others in key positions who credit
much of their leadership ability to their earlier experience as athletes. A
number of years ago I heard a fascinating and very moving account of such
leadership achievement by members of the U.S. military who had competed as
student athletes during their college days at the United States Military
Academy (West Point).
They shared their experiences as officers in
the Army, and described how many of the qualities that had
helped them to excel in sports proved extraordinarily critical in combat
situations… such qualities as successfully managing their emotional responses
in high-stress situations, maintaining laser-like focus in battle, identifying
and prioritizing key goals for short term and long term performance objectives,
and the ability to perform with high levels of confidence. (In fact, the entire
student body at West Point receives the very same kinds of training that sport
psychologist use to help professional and Olympic athletes.)
In 2009, Dakota Meyer was a 21-year-old
marine whose feats in battle earned him the Medal of Honor – becoming the first
living recipient of this award in 38 years. In September, 2009, Meyer, a marine
sniper, was sent with his unit together with some Afghan soldiers into a small
valley where they were told the villagers were friendly. They didn’t know that
that Taliban had set up an ambush in the village and had everyone pinned down.
The enemy was attempting to cut off the rest of the team in the rear and kill
them all. Dakota, who had raised some doubts about the mission, had been left
behind apart from his team.
When he heard the gunfire, Meyer decided to
enter the battle, knowing that his disobedience might result in his being sent
on the first plane back to the States. According to reports, Meyer found four
fallen comrades, all stripped of their weapons, radios and body armor. With the
help of some friendly Afghan soldiers he moved the bodies to a safer area, then
went in to evacuate 12 additional wounded troops and provide cover for another
24 Marines to escape likely death. He later told friends, “I kept hearing all
this static, and later I realized that it was all the bullets going by.”
He and his driver came up behind the Taliban
who were trying to complete their trap, and the Taliban fighters ran up to his
truck to throw grenades at it and he was shooting people who were one and two
feet from him. At this point the helicopter came in to get the wounded and if
Dakota hadn’t been there a lot of people would have died.
Appearing in the interview with Meyer was
Retired Admiral Jack Fetterman who trained pilots at Pensacola Naval Air
Station. Fetterman shared that he was often asked what made a great pilot, and
noted, “They keep sending us engineers, but I don’t want engineers. I want a
guy who was an athlete or majored in P.E. (Physical Education) that’s got
instinct and guts, who isn’t going to sit there and analyze things but is
capable of acting on instinct.”
Comparing a well-trained soldier to an
athlete, Fetterman added, “Take a baseball player who has swung at a ball
10,000 times and when he’s at bat he doesn’t have to think about it.” So when
Dakota was asked, “What were you thinking about during the battle?” he replied
“Just my aim point.” In the course of the battle he had used a 50 caliber
machine gun, a 240 machine gun, his rifle, his grenade launcher, and even took
one enemy out with a rock… and all the time, in the midst of all that
pandemonium, all he was focused on was the sight picture because of all the
rounds he had fired in the weeks, months, and years leading up to that day.
While all the arms training might seem
repetitive, it was the technical and strategic competency developed during the
hours and hours of practice that Meyer was able to rely on in the heat of
battle. In a moment of extreme stress, Meyer’s effectiveness was enhanced by
his ability to free his mind from technical concerns and trust completely in
his preparation and his abilities.
As he put it, “All I did was go to see where
I could help and fight together with my brothers … when I came upon what I saw
I simply reacted.”
Having the confidence to trust one’s
instincts and one’s ability is important not only in battle but also in the
“battle” we call athletic competition. Too often it happens that a missed shot
or poorly executed defense, and fears of being taken out of the game, cause an
athlete to become overly self-absorbed… and he starts to focus on the wrong
things. Dakota Meyer’s comments shed insight what helped him do what he did on
that day - going about reacting to the
situation and looking to see where he could help.
Another valiant fighter talked as well about
how any worries he might have had regarding his own individual performance were
rendered inconsequential by his focusing on the greater concern for the team.
Sal (Salvatore) Giunta received the Medal of
Honor for saving the lives of members of his squad during fighting in
Afghanistan in October 2007. His unit was sent to the Korengal Valley, an area
roughly 10 km. by 1.6 km or 6 x 1 miles, known as the “Valley of Death” due to
the extreme amount of firefights in that area.
One night some 10-15 Taliban ambushed the
main body of the squad from a mere 10 meters away, making air support from the
Apaches overhead impossible. As Giunta described it:
“There were more bullets in the air than
stars in the sky. A wall of bullets (coming at you) with one crack and then a
million other cracks afterwards. They’re above you, in front of you, behind
you, below you. They’re hitting in the dirt. They’re going over your head. Just
all over the place. They were close—as close as I’ve ever seen.”
During the fighting the leader of Giunta’s
team was hit repeatedly and taken captive, and soon there were several
casualties. Pinned down, Giunta and some of his men acted to disrupt the
attack, and though hit twice himself, Giunta then he ran after the retreating
Taliban to rescue his unit commander and bring him back to safety.
When asked if he had acted on instinct, he
replied “It’s what we train for, so we don’t have to think about it… so it
becomes second nature to us. We were there to help the local people and improve
the quality of their life. I’ve never done anything in the military alone. That
is one thing the military does a great job at is to build a team. There are so
many great things that men and women in uniform do every day that we don’t hear
about. I did my job. I was trained well. I acted on reflex. I just wanted to
save my buddies.”
“We have to do whatever it takes... and it’s
about the team … so it’s about the person to the left of you and the person to
the right of you. You don’t have to worry about yourself because the person to
the left of you is going to worry about you and the person to the right of you
is going to worry about you. We’re there to take care of each other. We’re all
in this together. We’re all part of the same team and the same fight. That
night in the Korengal Valley it was just brothers looking out for brothers. If
you were to think of it like a painting my brush stroke wasn’t the first
brushstroke and it wasn’t the last brushstroke, and it wasn’t necessarily the
most beautiful brushstroke or the most amazing – it was just one more
brushstroke that helped paint that picture at that moment. I was able to do
what I did because of the people around me.”
For the many athletes who become discouraged
when their execution falls short, and who tend as a result to focus on their
own play – the words of these two soldiers who in the heat of battle were
focused not on themselves but on their team – focused on what they had to do at
that moment and relying on instinct to step up to the task at hand – offer
invaluable guidance.
© 2013 Dr. Mitchell
Smith
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