KEEP THIS SOLDIER HOME
Unfortunately, the publicity has probably ruined her chances.
But Shauna Rohbock should stay home.
Hear me out. You may not agree at first, and you may not agree ever, but I think I’m right. I think she should stay home.
Right now she’s at Camp Williams, at that narrow passage between Salt Lake Valley on the north and Utah Valley on the south. She is garrisoned there with the 115th Engineer Group on the way to Iraq.
The 115th has been mobilized and she – as a Utah Army National Guardsman – has been mobilized with it.
She is a soldier and she is going to war.
Which is why she missed the World Cup last weekend.
At 26, Shauna Rohbock is the preeminent female American bobsledder. She has “gold medal” written all over her. And because of that she was recruited into the Army’s World Class Athlete Program. She was asked to join the Army National Guard so that her athletic success would bring good publicity to the Army and it’s recruiting effort.
And she has done that, probably better than most of the athletes in the Army’s program. The reason for that is that she is also a professional soccer player, with the San Diego Spirit of the WUSA. In a radio interview last year, she told an audience, “You know, it’s so great to be a part of the U.S. Army.”
That’s why they wanted her in uniform.
To tell young people who admired her athletic success that the Army is a good thing.
But that’s not what they have her doing.
They have her filling out paperwork. She is a clerk. Seventy-one Lima, we used to call them. Her job, if the Army is anything like it used to be, is to type, sweep the day room and make the first sergeant’s coffee.
And she’ll do that for most of the next two years – disqualifying her from the Olympics and essentially ending her professional soccer career.
Her days as an elite athlete will be over, and her usefulness to the Army as a recruiting tool will be gone.
Which doesn’t make sense.
Because Shauna Rohbock is of greater use to her country as an Army bobsledder than she is as an Army clerk. Both are honorable service, but the Army has thousands of typists and just one world-class bobsledder. It only makes sense to use people in ways that best suit their talents.
And athletics is a long-recognized way to do that.
My high school history teacher was in the Army during the Korean War – on a touring baseball team, entertaining the troops. Ditto for the sales boss at a radio station I used to work at.
When I was in the Army, I wrote newspaper stories and took pictures – and went to cover Army athletes participating in the Pan American Games. Sports has been an honorable form of military duty since the days of Col. Abner Doubleday.
It is in the best interest of the Army, apparently, for the 115th to go to Iraq. It is in the best interest of the Army, clearly, for Shauna Rohbock to go to the Olympics. What needs to be figured out is a way to do both.
It seems like somewhere there ought to be some strings that could be pulled. There ought to be somebody with enough brass on his hat to do the right thing.
Would this be a shirking of duty? Would this be disrespectful to the sacrifices made by every National Guardsman called to active service?
No way.
This isn’t about some girl having to give up her dream, this is about the Army wasting a valuable resource. It’s about using the right tool for the right task.
Shauna is not mission essential in her duties with the 115th, but she is mission essential in her duties with the World Class Athlete Program.
Shauna Rohbock’s continued athletic competition would, in fact, be in honor of her colleagues in the Army and Army National Guard. It would be a chance to show, in an international sporting spotlight, the high caliber of young person who wears the uniform of the U.S. Army.
And it would be just what the Army signed her up to be – a positive and powerful recruiting and public relations tool.
Shauna was probably the best girl’s soccer player in Utah high school history. She still holds almost a dozen records at Brigham Young University – where she was an All-American in both soccer and the heptathlon. And she is a legitimate gold medal contender in the next winter Olympics.
It seems like it would not be inappropriate to transfer her to stateside Army duty that would allow her to continue to train and compete in bobsledding.
Perhaps there could even be a position found for her within the command group of the Utah Army National Guard. Possibly there is worthwhile work she could do in the office of the Utah Adjutant General that would allow her to continue to represent the Army in competition. She could even cycle in and out of Iraq during the summer, so as not to conflict with the bobsledding season.
Exceptions are made all the time. There should be one made in this case.
The only obstacle is perception.
Some may see her as receiving special treatment because she is an athlete. They may become confused and believe that serving anywhere other than Iraq would be dishonorable for Shauna.
But those views are mistaken. Allowing Shauna Rohbock to continue bobsledding is in the best interest of the Army. Period. It’s not about anything other than that.
I hope you agree.
And I hope you agree that Shauna should stay home. I hope you agree she should continue as a proud athletic representative of the United States and the Army.
And I hope you will help make that happen.
Please forward this column – or make a phone call to – the offices of the Utah governor, Utah’s two senators, Utah’s three congressmen or the Adjutant General at Utah National Guard headquarters. Each of those people has the power to do something about this.
And one of them should.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2003
