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THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, January 14, 2010
5
US Biathletes can out-ski I’m sure I’ll find a couple
almost everyone, I’ll bet angles to develop – even
that our New England 7000 miles from Lake
Marine Corps reservists Winnipesaukee.
could hold their own in It’s been exactly five
by mike moffett
“hitting the bulls eye” years since that first
Contributing Writer
when it comes to shoot- Sport-Thoughts column
ing! in the Weirs Times and I
Biathlons, Cold would like to thank the
Weather … and An Afghan Hiatus Lawtons for their gen-
Afghanistan Uncle Sam may not be a erosity in finding space
Back in 1993 I was for- skier himself, but he has for more sports material
tunate to be able to serve the addresses of people in their splendid weekly
as the commanding officer like me who have stayed publication. And thank
for Alpha Company of the active in the reserves and you to everyone who took
1st Battalion, 25th Marine who have experience with time to read some of these
Regiment – the reserve mountain and winter mili- columns!
USMC unit in Topsham, tary operations. So I was In closing, I’m reminded
Maine. not surprised to get orders of the words of that great
During March of that to report to Quantico, Va. sports philosopher, Yogi
year the Marines opted Then-Captain Mike Moffett with retired General Norman and get back into uniform Berra.
to send our unit to the Schwarzkopf in northern Norway in March of 1993. to prepare for a special as- “It’s tough to make pre-
Arctic region of northern signment in Afghanistan. dictions. Especially about
Norway to participate in a working for CBS-TV and are traditionally the most This will make it difficult the future.”
NATO military operation. was developing a sports popular events at the Win- to submit a weekly col-
The thinking was that segment that would run ter Games. But check out umn for a while, but I will Born Today ...
our hardy New England- during the 1994 Winter the biathlon too. The US try to work up and sub- That is to say notable
ers could cope with the Olympics, which were to roster is heavy with Olym- mit some sort of human persons born on January
stresses of Arctic warfare. be held in Lillehammer, pians from our part of the interest feature from cen- 14 include actor William
Bravo Company, then out Norway. Schwarzkopf’s country. tral Asia later this year. Bendix (1906) who fa-
of Manchester, N.H., was focus was the biathlon, And while I’m sure the Sports are ubiquitous and See moffett on 25
also sent to Norway. a popular event which
Most of our Marines involves a combination
were hunters and were of Nordic skiing and rifle
quite comfortable in the shooting.
snow. We’d trained on Given that our New Eng-
skis and snowshoes for land Marines had well-
quite a while leading up established their skiing
to the deployment. We and shooting acumen,
were always ahead of the commander steered
schedule and the reserv- Schwarzkopf to our guys,
ists really outperformed who were delighted to
their active duty counter- show off their skills for the
parts. The regulars were General and his cameras.
disproportionately from Schwarzkopf was fa-
Florida, Louisiana, Texas miliar with the demands
and California, and were of winter warfare, hav-
quite miserable and al- ing done Arctic survival
ways behind schedule in training in Alaska as a
the Arctic snows. young officer. He was
One day we received impressed by the enthu-
word that a special guest siasm and skills that our
would be visiting our Marines displayed and I
encampment. Retired was very pleased to rec-
Army General H. Norman ognize some of our men
Schwarzkopf had traveled in the TV feature that was
to northern Norway with subsequently produced
a film crew. Schwarzkopf and shown during the
had been our commander CBS Olympic telecasts the
two years earlier when following year.
many of us had served The 2010 Winter Olym-
in Southwest Asia during pics, officially known as
Operation Desert Storm. the XXI Olympic Winter
We’d never seen the Gen- Games or the 21st Win-
eral when we were in the ter Olympics, will be held
desert but.ironically, there next month near Vancou-
he appeared in the Norwe- ver, British Columbia.
gian snow of all places. Downhill skiing, figure
Schwarzkopf was then skating, and ice hockey
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