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Location: Portillo, CHL
After checking out the vineyard, a quick stop in Los Andes to check out the nearest city (population: 80,000), and a late dinner, we all headed to sleep.
The next morning, our last in Chile, we had 25-km ahead of us. At least, five of us did. Five? But a team is four? Well, one of our teammates didn’t acclimate well to the altitude, so we co-opted Travis, our coach and wax technician into skiing the race with us! Well, he had to shoot, too, because he was outranked by Sam, our one and only first lieutenant, and the highest ranked on the team doesn’t shoot. Travis was rightly a bit stressed about the race. First, it’s 9500 feet of altitude. Second, we had just won the first two races. And third, on paper, supposedly, we had the best team. But he put on a good attitude and we were all excited to do this funny thing called the patrol.
We couldn’t quite figure out in what order we ought to ski. Should Travis, self-proclaimed slowest skier on the team, go first, so that we wouldn’t go too fast for him? Or, should I go first, to block the wind and provide a draft for the others? Sometimes, if you’re put in front, you go too fast, even for yourself, just because you feel like you’re going too slowly for whoever is behind you. I was a bit worried about that happening, since Travis and Blake, our other teammate, both showed a bit of what we’ll call “leader’s excitement” in training the day before. I knew that I could keep my pace conservative, but I have a low turnover and long glide phase owing to my 6 foot height (6’ 1” according to Travis). At least, we were able to figure out which order we would shoot in: me, Blake, and then Travis, with Sam doing what an LT does best, “supervise” and give orders.
We had intended to do negative splits, with each of the six laps becoming ever faster. However, we skied one minute slower on our second lap than our first lap (12:28 versus 13:28), so we probably started too fast. On one of the laps, I noticed that Blake was struggling a bit, especially on the downhills. We couldn’t remember if it was legal to switch skis, but we found out that it was okay once we went through the stadium. My skis were moving pretty well, so I switched onto his Fischers. Whereas prior to switching, I would sprint on gradual downhills to give Travis or Blake a push, on the Fischers those sprints became far less frequent!
In the shooting range, I missed my first shot, but hit the one target on my second attempt (bringing my career patrol race format hit percentage down from 100 percent, or 1/1, to 67 percent, or 2/3!). Blake took two, while Travis hit his target on the first try! And with our shooting done for the race, onwards we slogged.
We maintained the 13:28 on the third and fourth laps. But by the end of the fourth lap, our train was definitely not on express status. Argentina started first, with a two-minute interval. We never saw them. We heard at points that we were 5 seconds down, 40 seconds down, then at one point, some guy screamed 4 minutes down. That was a killer. Chile started behind us. We heard we were even with them, until they came out of nowhere and passed us. But just as quickly as they passed us, they slowed down, and we passed them back.
We kept in front of Chile, but they beat us do to their better shooting and the start interval. Argentina beat us, too. We finished third. So much for a Phelps sweep for me. It was hard not to be satisfied, however. Despite his worries, Travis fought to the end and never looked bonked, as he’d feared he would become. He ended up shooting the best, despite a lot of rust accumulating on his barrel (meant figuratively). And it was a gorgeous day and we were surrounded by some awesome mountains. Plus, we had just eight hours until our flight left Santiago for the U.S.
After the race, we rushed to pack and clean up. We were summoned to a formation outside for the awards ceremony. A Chilean general attended, in addition to the Warfare School’s principal, a colonel, and high-ranking dignitaries from Argentina and Brazil. A U.S. Army full-bird colonel came from Santiago, where he serves as an attaché to the Chilean military. A number of dignitaries gave speeches (en espanol) and the band played. Then the awards were presented…
When I was called to the podium for the first time, I received a medal and shook the dignitaries’ hands. Then, two of them stood in front of the podium, the band began to play, and they saluted towards me. Instinctively, I returned the salute, but then I realized that maybe they weren’t saluting me and that I shouldn’t salute back. So, I did the worst thing of all: I dropped the salute while theirs remained. Basically, military suicide. No one seemed to notice, though. The second time I went to the podium, I maintained the salute the entire time. It was cool because, this time, the dignitary was the visiting American colonel. When you’re a specialist (low rank), even if you’re an Olympian, being saluted by a colonel makes you proud.
With T-minus 2 hours until we had to leave for the airport, but not everything packed and a big luncheon planned, we were being forced to cut things close. At lunch, we were entertained by dancing girls (not kidding), copious amounts of wine, and gift exchanges among the dignitaries. We chatted with the Chilean officers attached to our team for the event. I learned a bit more about the school. They have courses in everything from rock climbing and ice climbing to full-on mountaineering and alpine skiing. The military students perform most of these tasks in full gear, with a weapon. As much as I love skiing, and as much as I respect the heroic actions performed by the 10th Mountain Division during WWII, I can’t imagine warfighting in the snow being all that fun.
After lunch, we said our good-byes and headed for the airport. Sam, Blake, and I had greasy American food in the airport, which turned out to be a mistake, at least for me, on the nearly nine-hour flight. Out of nowhere, our OIC (officer in charge, sort of like a team leader) found us eating in the corner of this restaurant and said we were being called over the loudspeaker. So we paid and packed up and headed for the gate. The agent said that customs wanted us to open our rifles. I always find it amusing (and frustrating) that countries have any issue with rifles being EXPORTED out of their country. I can understand if the country had an arms embargo on the U.S., but this is Chile and the U.S. I don’t know of any outstanding crises between our two countries. So, for customs, we waited.
Eventually, someone came, and they took us down to the tarmac, where we waited… Apparently, the shift had just changed, so the people tasked with inspecting our rifles had gone off duty. Changing shifts is a thirty-minute affair, it seems. At long last, a customs inspector came and inspected the rifles – meaning, he looked at them. No paperwork involved. Somehow, in the chaos, one of our guys lost his baggage tag, so now his rifle case had no destination. The agent wrote a paper substitute (something I would not exactly trust for international travel, mind you, but…).
And we boarded the plane and headed back to the Northern Hemisphere…
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