Courtesy Photo | Spc. Deme Ergie, a combat medic with 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, stands with...... read more read more
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FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska - Spc. Deme Ergie didn’t used to be a runner and as a medic assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, he found little opportunity to keep in good cardiovascular shape while deployed to Afghanistan.
“It was hard to find the time to really get a good workout downrange,” Ergie said. “The ground back on [Forward Operating Base] Shoja wasn’t really good for running.”
But when the “Bobcat” soldiers of the 1-5th started redeploying home to Fort Wainwright in April, Ergie saw a chance to get back in shape and seized a hold of it. Several officers and soldiers with the 1-5th had formed Team Bobcat Rush; a group of motivated running enthusiasts who planned to represent their battalion at various events throughout Alaska during the summer running season.
At the top of Team Bobcat Rush’s list of activities were the Army 10-mile tryouts in May, and the Anchorage-based mayor’s marathon in June.
Ergie was born in Ethiopia and before joining the Army hailed from Alexandria, Va., where he hopes to someday return and go to school.
Away from home and fairly new to the Army, Ergie decided that he would join the Team Bobcat Rush, purely for the purpose of improving his running.
“I wanted to get better,” he said.
Team Bobcat Rush’s captain, 1st Lt. Ivaylo Benov, recalls how difficult it was for the young Spc. Ergie at first.
“He had difficulty just completing a basic two-mile run on Manas Air Force Base while we were waiting to come home,” Benov said. “We were aiming to do a really easy self-paced workout and it was pretty tough for him.”
A true soldier is not easily dissuaded, though, and Ergie kept at it, showing up virtually every day after Team Bobcat Rush returned home for morning practices at 5:30 a.m. at the Chena Bend Golf Course on Fort Wainwright.
“We ran that early in the morning because we wanted to be used to running long distances during the same time of day as the race,” Benov explained.
The team’s workouts usually were eight miles at a minimum, and at least once a week team members could expect to run in excess of 10 miles to train themselves for the actual event.
The practice and Ergie’s personal dedication paid off; he ran the 10-miler trial in a time of 69:37, averaging a pace of less than seven minutes a mile for the entire race. That time qualified him for an alternate position on the USARAK 10-miler team and made him the second-fastest member of Team Bobcat Rush.
Ergie’s performance in the Freedom Fest 5K, held a little over a month later, was even more impressive: he clocked in at 19:43, or about 6 minutes and 30 seconds per mile. That performance won him second place overall for the race.
“This is just outstanding,” Ergie’s company first sergeant, 1st Sgt. Larry Addy said. “Ergie is a role model for the rest of the soldiers in this company and this battalion. He really is proof that anybody can get in shape if they’re just willing to put in the time and dedication.”
Capt. Mike Gorman, the HHC commander, agrees.
“The really great thing about Ergie’s success is that he is a guy who picked himself up by the bootstraps and got better without us, the chain of command, having to tell him to get better,” Gorman said. “I’d feel so much better if more soldiers in this company followed his example.”
Staff Sgt. Jeremy Conn, the 1-5th medic platoon sergeant, has started running with Ergie on a regular basis.
“He pushes me and is getting me in great shape,” Conn said.
Team Bobcat Rush has continued to grow, with more junior soldiers starting to attend practices. Benov can only guess that the increased numbers have something to do with the fact that the soldiers have seen one of their peers go so far in so relatively short a time.
Yet Ergie himself is completely humble when talking about his own success.
“I’m not special,” Ergie emphasizes to anyone who asks him about his running. “I think that anyone can do what I’ve done, absolutely. It’s just takes dedication.”
| Date Taken: | 07.23.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 07.23.2012 22:13 |
| Story ID: | 92033 |
| Location: | FORT WAINWRIGHT, AK, US |
| Hometown: | FAIRBANKS, AK, US |
| Hometown: | FORT WAINWRIGHT, AK, US |
| Hometown: | WASHINGTON, DC, US |
| Web Views: | 121 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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