An honor and a privilege
<p>Mary Lloyd waits for friends Tuesday near a table setup for Quantico Marine Corps athletes who were killed in Vietnam.</p>
<p>Billy Mills, the 1964 Olympics gold medalist in the 10,000-meter race, discusses the importance of being a Marine before departing on a dinner cruise on Lake Coeur d'Alene with other Quantico athletes Tuesday.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - They are, Pete Optekor says, among the best and bravest men he has known.
Yes, they excelled in sports. Some won Olympic medals. Some played professionally. But it was what they did on the battlefield that the Hayden Lake man remembers most.
"There was the close fellowship we experienced on the football field, but more importantly, what we went through in combat has made everything close, personal and dear," he said.
About 120 men who served at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, and were athletes there and beyond, are in Coeur d'Alene for the 10th Quantico Marine Athletes Reunion this week.
They came to ride bikes on the Route of the Hiawatha, tour Silver Valley mines, golf and enjoy dinner. They shared smiles, handshakes, hugs and recalled the lives and sacrifices of fallen comrades, too.
Optekor estimated that 90 percent of the men at the reunion saw combat, primarily in Vietnam.
"We get together each year to remember all of our teammates who were killed in Vietnam and share that fellowship between us," said Optekor, event organizer who played football for the U.S. Naval Academy from 1959 to 1963. He served three years in the Marine Corps, one at Quantico, and served in Vietnam.
"All my life I wanted to be a Marine and an athlete," he said.
Billy Mills, who won the gold medal in the 10,000 meters at the 1964 Olympic games in one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history, served three years in theMarines.
"Both, the Olympics and being a Marine, played an instrumental part in my life," he said Tuesday while waiting for a boat cruise to get underway.
Mills, a native American, considered himself half Indian, half white growing up in South Dakota. He often felt like an outsider, even as an All-American runner at the University of Kansas.
"The first time I ever felt like I totally belonged was when I became a Marine," he said.
Mills, who gave a talk Tuesday night to the group, said "it's the journey, not the destination, that empowers us.
"It's the daily choices we make in life, not just the talent we possess that choreographs our destiny."
The cruise included a table with a display of black and white pictures of Quantico Marines who died in Vietnam.
"That's the table for heroes," Mills said. "We're here to a great extent because of them.
Miller called the reunion an opportunity "to remember them as well as we continue our journey here.
"To me, it borders on a sacred moment," he added.
Mills said he lost friends and relatives in Vietnam.
"It's humbling. You never forget that and you always feel a little bit of guilt," he said.
Part of the healing of that guilt, he said, is being around the men who have gone to Vietnam.
"We're family," Mills said.
A number of top Quantico athletes were at the reunion, including Bill Zadel, an All-America tackle at West Point; King Dixon, an All-American running back at the University of South Carolina, Wood Gilliland, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel who flew Cobra helicopters in Vietnam, Larry Rawson, an ESPN sportscaster and Bill Reilly, a track Olympian.
"The Marine Corps used to use athletic programs to recruit some of the best Marine officers they could out of college," Optekor said.
Optekor said hosting such accomplished men was a once-in-a-lifetime chance that he will treasure.
"It's a privilege, it's an honor," he said.