The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families. Through the perspective of a community of former graduates and Naval Academy insiders, this podcast will help you learn about life at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Through our shared experiences, Academy Insider guides families through the anxiety and frustration caused by lack of understanding, misinformation, and confusion. This platform is designed to better relationships between midshipmen and their loved ones. This podcast is not affiliated with the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy or Department of Defense. The thoughts and opinions are exclusively those of your host and his guests.
The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
#083 The Military World Games: Insights on the Importance of Military Sports
What if military sports could unlock leadership potential and foster international diplomacy? Join us as we uncover this intriguing prospect with our special guest, Eli Bremer, an accomplished Air Force Academy graduate, Olympian, and Military World Games competitor. We explore Eli's captivating journey from a two-sport athlete at the Academy to earning global recognition. Together, we shine a light on the often-overlooked avenues for service academy graduates to extend their athletic dreams beyond their academic years, through remarkable programs such as the Armed Forces Sports Program.
The World Military Games aren't just about sports—they're a grand spectacle of camaraderie and competition on a scale that rivals the Olympics. Imagine military athletes from 141 nations coming together to display their prowess. This episode unpacks the historical and strategic importance of these games, organized by CISM, and the unique challenges faced by American military athletes in preparation. With personal anecdotes and insights from past competitions in Wuhan, China, we highlight the pressing need for enhanced support and recognition for these athletes who represent the U.S. on the world stage.
As we look ahead to the 2027 World Military Games in Charlotte, there's much excitement in the air. Plans are underway to present a world-class event featuring awe-inspiring ceremonies and an international military expo. This is more than just a sporting event; it's a chance for the U.S. to showcase its hospitality and strength. Additionally, we explore the profound impact of sports on military leadership, evidenced by successful figures like Chad Senior and the integration of sports in military duties in countries like Lithuania. We wrap up with heartfelt gratitude to our Academy Insider audience, encouraging feedback to make our podcast a continuous source of inspiration and information for the Naval Academy community.
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
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Welcome to Season 2 of the Academy Insider Podcast. Academy Insider is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that serves midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. At its core, this podcast is designed to bring together a community of Naval Academy graduates and those affiliated with the United States Naval Academy in order to tell stories and provide a little bit of insight into what life at the Naval Academy is really like. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for listening and reach out if you ever have any questions. Everyone, and welcome back to the Academy Insider podcast. Today's episode is the final episode of 2024. Thank you so much to the incredible audience of Academy Insider who's followed along with me. This is exciting and today's episode is going to be a great way to conclude 2024. I'm so excited to do it because I'm joined by Eli Bremmer. Eli Bremmer is actually an Air Force Academy graduate from the class of 2000. But this is where it goes crazy. He's actually an Olympian and then a two times World Military Games alumni, and he won a gold medal in the pentathlon in the World Military Games. This guy is an elite athlete and has been connected in the military sports space for a long time. And what is really cool is if you're listening to this right now, there is a proposal for the United States of America to host the 2027 World Military Games in Charlotte. If you have no idea what the World Military Games is, I don't blame you. We haven't put a ton of emphasis or recognition around it. So that's what this episode is all about. Today is we're going to highlight military sports and military sport culture, because after your time at the academy, your sports playing career doesn't have to end. There are so many ways to compete at the all Navy level, at the armed forces service level, and compete in international tournaments, and so if that's something that's interesting to you, then take a listen to this episode. It's so cool. We cover so many different aspects about the importance of sport and military culture and then highlight and talk about the World Military Games which will be coming to the United States in 2027. So take a listen, reach out if you have any questions. Thank you so much and I hope you have a great day.
Speaker 1:The Academy Insider Podcast is sponsored by the Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that serves the United States Naval Academy community and other select clientele in both California and Texas. If I can ever answer a real estate related question for you or connect you with a trusted Academy affiliated agent in the market which you're in. Please reach out to me directly at grant at the Vermeer groupcom. You can also reach out to me on my LinkedIn page, Grant Vermeer, and I'd be happy to respond to you there. Thank you so much, and now let's get back to the episode.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Academy insider podcast, Eli. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. I think this is going to be a super fun topic, obviously, as some sports fanatics uh, talking about military sports, which is great. But before we do jump into it, if you just mind providing a little bit of context to the Academy Insider audience about who you are, how you ended up actually at the Air Force Academy, a little bit about your time in the Air Force, both as an Air Force officer and an athlete, and then currently what you're doing now.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, grant, thanks for having me on. It's great to be here after a couple minor technical difficulties to get here. Um, but I'm eli bremer. I graduated from the uh, the other service academy, the air force academy uh, in 2000. I was when I hang out with west point and annapolis grads and they're like did you go to west point? No, did you go to annapolis? No, but you said you went to a service academy. There are three. Uh, I always get. I always get into that.
Speaker 2:But I grew up here in colorado, which actually just north of the Air Force Academy, and my older brother graduated three years before me and he's actually retiring. He's in 06, in a couple months. So he's had a long career there but was stationed here in Colorado Springs at Schriever Space Force what's now Space Force Base in Peterson Space Force Base. But I did a lot of time in sports and sort of became a sports expert in the military. I was a two-sport athlete at the Air Force Academy but parlayed that over into time in the World Class Athlete Program and competed in the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, a broadcast for Olympics. I now advise the Air Force's sports program and I used to run the largest Olympic sponsorship program in the country. So I do a lot with sports marketing, and today we'll be talking about my next venture, which is the World Military Games, which you're familiar with too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I'm so excited about it because if you are watching, like on YouTube, and you see the video aspect of this, obviously I have my Jersey from the military world games hanging up behind me, which is so cool, because I think one of the things that is really interesting that people don't really consider when they attend a service Academy, especially athletes is they assume that their sports career is over after the Academy and while, again, we're going to have a lot of discussion pieces and all this when it comes to professional sports et cetera, but there is this thing that we call the Armed Forces Sports Program, which gives people opportunity to compete at a very high level still after their time at the academy and when they're in what we call the Navy, the fleet I'm not sure what they call it in the Air Force, but you're actually an officer out doing the thing, in working, there's still an opportunity to compete on what we call for us again, the all Navy team and the all Air Force team.
Speaker 1:And so my question to you actually, eli, is when you were going through this again for basketball, we had an inter-services tournament where, like, the Air Force team played the Navy team, which played the Army team which played the Marine Corps team. Was that similar in your sector? Did you guys have just you would just go straight to competing with the USA Armed Forces team, making your way out to international competition.
Speaker 2:It's a little different for each sport. So I was, I tracked really up the uh the Olympic chain into the world-class athlete program which the the army has, the air force has uh, the the Navy does not have. Yet we're working on some uh, we're working on some options for uh expanding the, the, the opportunities for Navy and Marine uh service members to be able to participate. But, yeah, in most cases they're sort of selected through that normal process you apply through your base gym or something like that. There are in the Air Force and the Army there are athletes who are assigned full-time into their Olympic programs. So by the time I was competing in the military events, I was the national champion. I was, you know, at one point top two in the world. So we didn't have the same type of selection.
Speaker 2:But you know, to me what matters here is a lot of people ask me the question why are sports important in the military? And I think it's great to go back to the start and MacArthur's quote of on the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other fields and other days will bear the fruits of victory. And I am such a firm believer that if you want to instill a warrior ethos into young men and women. One of the best ways to do it is by sport participation, and the more the better. Yep.
Speaker 1:No, 100%.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more, for both my time at the Academy and after, kind of in the fact that a lot of my leadership development happened on the court right, like there are so many dynamics that kind of directly relate to that experience.
Speaker 1:And a question I have for you, since again we're talking about the military world games especially which again is going to be a fun introduction in this topic You're someone who competed in both the military world games and the actual Olympics, and so, for someone who's not aware, if you were to play for some of these, like the armed forces sports teams, every four years, once every four years, kind of in a in a military or an Olympic cycle, there is what we call the military world games, right, and so I competed in 2019 in Wuhan, china. There are over 100 countries there, 20 plus sports being played, billions of dollars invested by China in infrastructure and everything to actually host this event. Can you describe the difference or similarities between competing in a military world games in the actual Olympics, just to kind of put in perspective how big this event is and like its legitimacy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, people in America are very unfamiliar with this event. But if I sort of start by talking about the Olympics, because this is where it all begins, the Olympics are the largest games event in the world. Okay, the Olympic rings are, are some of, if not the most recognizable commercial mark in the world. There are some of the most well-respected, it's one of the most well-respected brands and I've got the, the Olympic rings, behind me right here for people that are watching. Um and so the Olympic, the, the international Olympic committee, under them, has an organization called CISM, which is French, the council international de sport, military, and that organization so this is part of the Olympic family organizes all the military sports globally. They've got 141 member nations and starting in 1995, they started organizing world military games.
Speaker 2:Cism has been around since 1953. They were formed after World War II to promote friendship through sport between allied countries. During the Cold War era it became sort of the proxy. One of the healthy, proxy battles between the United States and the Soviets was sports play. So anyway, over the last you know what is it?
Speaker 2:Three, four decades now we've been hosting World Military Games inside the Olympic system and so globally, the World Military Games are actually the second largest games event in the world, only behind the Olympics. In Wuhan, where you competed, they had 10,000 athletes, 120 nations. To put that in perspective, I've competed in three different games events the Olympic games, the world military games and the Pan American games. And the World Military Games is 50 to 100 percent larger than the Pan American Games. So you know, people sort of think it's the Warrior Games. That's about 500 people. This is 20 times the size of the Warrior Games. And in terms of quality, the World Military Games are also the second highest level Olympic-style sporting event in the world, only behind the Olympics. It is more difficult to win a gold medal at the World Military Games, statistically speaking and in terms of quality of the athletes, than at the Pan American Games or the Goodwill Games. Military athletes in the Parisics won almost 175 medals.
Speaker 2:Yep, so, uh, 10, about 10 of the olympians in paris were military. So the scope is way bigger and you saw this firsthand. Firsthand. I mean wuhan, china, they, they put it on. There was a huge stadium there. Um, you know it was it was.
Speaker 1:It was unbelievable. Right and and again. Because what's funny is, even being in the military and competing on the team, I had no idea about this event. And when we went out to China, right like they, they put on a massive opening ceremony. Massive president Gigi pink spoke at the event. Right Like they, they had. I kid you not, this is one of the wildest things. Likeie chan came zip lining down into the stadium performing as a singer like he's a pop star in china, oh yeah, I don't even know him as an actor.
Speaker 1:I was like I was like what is going on? Like this is the craziest, coolest experience of all time. And then, like you were talking about, you were walking through kind of the mess hall, the cafeteria that they have there, and everyone from their respective countries have the Olympic rings tattooed on them. Like the majority of athletes who are competing, who are also military in their home country, are Olympic athletes, right. And so like I'm walking around like I was on a submarine four months ago and now I'm here trying to compete, like against professional athletes.
Speaker 1:I was like what is going on? And so, again, from from the level of competition, like it's so high and that's why I want to turn it a little bit to like training for these games, because in the sport of basketball specifically, we would get literally one month to go TAD temporary assigned duty to train, to like go to a training camp and then get ready to play. In my opinion, especially on the basketball side, again, we haven't taken it that seriously. The fact that I was playing in these games is crazy, right, like I was an okay athlete, but like not nearly like the level of all this is going on and so you know, obviously you have a little bit more with, like the world-class athlete program that kind of has people allowed to train. Do you mind breaking down, you know, between sports or just the overall, like overall, generalizing how we train athletes for these events?
Speaker 2:Well, unfortunately, grant, we haven't done a good job of it and that's led to some not very good results in the past, and this is a very important part of soft power for the United States. So again back to what I was saying earlier. People sort of have asked the question isn't sports just fun and games and stuff like that? And I said no. If you go back to the ancient Greek times, this was how we trained warriors. For literally over 2,000 years, sports training has been the foundational training for warrior ethos, and so it's not just about, as I said, fun and games, but the United States.
Speaker 2:Until recently and this is something that again thank you for having me on, because I'm trying to spread the word about what we're doing here we're really working on bringing the United States up to par with the rest of the world, because other countries and you know folks like China, north Korea, germany has a very large sports unit. There's even countries like Turkey, egypt, mexico, countries all over the world are using this to train their athletes. Number one. But also it creates an environment where, you know, their young people get a chance to sort of open their eyes and see the world. I'm curious had you ever been to China before before that.
Speaker 1:Nope, Literally first time, first time stepping in anywhere in the, in the Indo-Pacific. Honestly, I had never been outside of Europe and the United States and Latin America.
Speaker 2:And you've probably never heard of Wuhan, which I think has over 10 million people in it.
Speaker 1:Huge city, huge city and obviously again, obviously COVID kind of made it more infamous. But like, yes, like there was never, like Wuhan, a massive industrial, like business city in China, never heard of it, and so you know, this gives like from from just the American point of view.
Speaker 2:It gives our young men and women in the service an opportunity to go out and see the world through different eyes. When I was competing in the Air Force, I actually landed in Egypt as the war broke out in Iraq and when the US invaded Iraq and we actually had to borrow uniforms from the Canadians because there were riots in the street and things like that. So I was a young lieutenant when that happened and had a very profound impact on me, um, you know. And then, and then back onto later that year, I competed in my very first world military games in 2003 in Italy.
Speaker 2:Um, and I would eventually go on to compete in 2011 in Brazil as well, but as an as an active duty air force officer, I was able to have very minor but official contact with North Koreans and Iranians, because in sport, you have the ability to mingle there and it gives a great opportunity for them to see us, to see that we're not terrible people. We also make some connections that can be extremely valuable over time. Uh yeah, in fact, part of the reason why this has come about that we're that the United States is anticipating to host the world military games is that as a young Lieutenant, after competitions I would periodically go get beers with another young Lieutenant from Brazil, and that young Lieutenant is now a full Colonel who's in charge of the entire operation, and he said hey, eli, y'all need to belly up to the bar here and, and you know, we need to get the United States military more involved in international sporting. Uh, it was that international friendship 20 years ago that has given the United States of America this opportunity.
Speaker 1:No, 100%. I couldn't agree more. Obviously, my scale of friendship and relationship built out of that is a little bit different, but it was the same thing. I built a really close friendship over time while I was in Wuhan with a Brazilian golfer right, and he's currently on. He makes his way into, he's on like a kind of a PGA tour outside of the United States but continues to golf professionally very successful. But again, like you're saying, it gives us an opportunity to build relationships with these athletes in other countries who are going to be in powerful positions at some point in time in their respective country. This is fostering international relationship very legitimately, very genuinely, building these foundations of relationships early on with people who are going to be in decision making positions and authorities over time. Yeah, right, and so back to that.
Speaker 2:You know very probably the most formative time in my life, a couple of years after graduation, when I was competing for my first Olympics, my uncle was his ambassador, paul Bremer, who had who was taking over Iraq and working on the reconstruction. And it's a little known story, but one of the very first things he did, the International Olympic Committee had kicked out the Iraqi Olympic team and so they were totally fine with Uday and Kusei Hussein committing human rights atrocities on their athletes. But when the United States took over they, you know, wanted to almost disgrace the Iraqis further. So my uncle flew around the country setting up elections, because the International Olympic Committee said the only way you will be allowed back in the Olympics is if you have fair and open elections for your Olympic Committee. Now I want to think about this.
Speaker 2:For four decades they've been living under, you know, a totalitarian system of Saddam Hussein. There were no elections. So he flew around, they set up the elections and they got their Olympic Committee reformed, which was the first elections in Iraq. But he called me up one day and said hey, I'm going to send out a number of our aspiring Olympians to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. And I said you're in a war zone, why are you doing this? And he said these are going to be the future leaders of the Iraqi nation and I need them to go over to the United States to meet you, meet other Olympic athletes and military members, so that they have a good opinion of us and that we have these sort of back channel connections.
Speaker 1:And it was about four weeks later they arrived at the training center and I became friends with them and you know, just, it really created an opportunity, I'm sure some 2019 World Military Games, the United States, by the fact that I was competing in this thing. In your opinion, why do we need to take this very seriously and what can we be doing in preparation for this World Military Games that's proposed to potentially be hosted in the United States coming up in a couple of years?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we need to have a resurgence in the United States, particularly in the military, the importance of sports and why it's good and it's. There's so many reasons. I mean, the reason you and I even connected a week ago was because I was, I was looking for that, that commercial that the Navy has big decks Great big decks, baby. I didn't know that about the Navy has big decks Great big decks, baby. I really didn't know that about the Navy. I was really curious because obviously that was not produced from the Pentagon. So I thought I wonder who the heck did this. And I'm searching around for it and there I come across your podcast and I look in the background I'm like, okay, I see your Navy jersey and I see the USA jersey and Googled you and I'm like, oh, that's super interesting. Grant played in the world military games. It opens up a lot of doors and a lot of connections. But I want people's minds to be opened up as to the importance of this too, because, like I said earlier, this is about, you know, formatting in our young men and women in the military a warrior ethos and understanding that competition matters, and losing on the field of play teaches you how to win and we need our service members to be winners, to think like winners, because when there is another war and there will be the United States will engage in a war at some point. We need these folks really well trained. So fortunately, I'm getting you know, at the political level this is bipartisan, I'm getting it from both parties support for the idea that the United States military needs to tilt back into at least a partial focus on excellence in sports. And so you know there's an appetite now to create a much bigger environment where our servicemen and women are able to come in and participate for a longer period of time, so that we're not pulling in from a submarine and saying, hey, good luck, go beat China, because, guess what, the Chinese are taking this seriously and call me a pig-headed American, but I don't think Americans should show up on foreign soil and not have the very, very best chance we have of kicking their butts up on foreign soil and not have the very, very best chance we have of kicking their butts. And so you know I want our servicemen and women to be out there with the best chance to succeed. I want these other countries to see America as strong we're able to show over, we're able to annihilate them on the field of play and then have a beer with them afterwards too. You know we can do all these things. So we're working on promoting, you know, on promoting this concept, where we would have a much larger participation program in the United States military, probably about 5x what we have right now in our Olympic program.
Speaker 2:But it also serves. There's no secret that the US military is really struggling in recruiting right now. Yes, really struggling in recruiting right now, and the latest numbers appear to be about 17% of high school seniors are eligible to serve in the military. And I think, quite disgracefully, we've been dropping the standards. Well, if we go to war with China, iran, russia, they're not going to drop their standards for us.
Speaker 2:So one, you know, one of the ways we can raise, we can keep the high standards is by showcasing the military as a place that's welcoming to athletes, so that athletes on their high school cross country team or high school wrestling team or basketball team look at this and say, culturally, that's a friendly place for athletes. Because those are the people you know where that 17% of high school seniors are. They're on their sports teams. Those are the people where that 17% of high school seniors are. They're on their sports teams, and it's not that they're going to come in to do sports, but if the United States military is viewed as a place of athletic excellence, it's much more intuitive for them to say, okay, I get it, I should consider this as a career.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely, and it's really interesting. And again, just pulling perspectives from some of the other militaries that we witnessed, like playing right, like when we competed against some of these other countries, specifically Lithuania, who won the gold medal in basketball. Again, when we talked to them they're like, hey, yeah, no, our military duty is playing basketball right. Like that's what we do. What we do, we play, we play professionally, and then we come together as a team here to get repetitions together, practice together, play together to, to get ready to compete in these tournaments. Is that something that you see also quite literally, as a pathway of, of a projected way that we can do this? And again, giving people an opportunity to, like you're saying, really have their military duty, be preparing to go compete and win on an international level, and how do you foresee that coming to life, if possible?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, and it's for multiple reasons. Again, like just delving in my personal life, I'm actually very close with the Lithuanian athletes who I competed against, and one of them, a female, lauraadiskaita, just got named to the Lithuanian parliament. So you know, here I am. You know, little Air Force grad sitting in Colorado Springs. I have personal contact now with a, with a parliament member over there, because you know her husband and I were very good friends. He's an Olympic silver medalist. I don't know how many times we've gone on runs together, trained together, been at competitions together. But also, here's the other interesting thing Athletes tend to do very well If you look at the service academies, the reason that they keep such a high level of sports team outside the fact it's great for the image of the schools, but these athletes tend to be one of the greatest predictors of how they do. Little known fact. I don't know if you know this. Do you know who the most famous athlete from my sport was? And he went to a service academy? I don't. Actually, george Patton competed in the Olympics in 2012, or in 1912, got fifth place in the pentathlon. Okay, so when we recruit athletes into the military, a lot of, a lot of these young people come in and say, hey, this is really fun, I'm going to get to go, you know, extend my career by a few years. Um, but they will oftentimes go on and serve with incredible distinction.
Speaker 2:Uh, one such individual I've known, uh, for it's approaching three decades now. Uh, he was a standout swimmer and runner. Uh in in high school. Then he was a scholarship swimmer in college. Uh, the army recruited him into their world-class athlete program where he went to two Olympics. Uh in in Sydney in 2000, athens, 2004. Um, he would later cross commission into the air force, became a combat rescue officer, you know. So he did special operations, got a master's degree at kellogg, uh graduate certificate at harvard, became the aid to camp to the chief of staff of the air force and retired as a full colonel. Uh, so you know the.
Speaker 2:The reason is that you can't, you can't divorce that winning. That you know I'm I'm going to win at all costs. I mean I his name was chad senior and I, you know, i've'm going to win at all costs. I mean, his name was Chad Senior and I've known him for years. We actually ran together at the World Military Games in 2003. But I mean, we're, you know, we've been friends for three decades and I watched Chad at the military championships in 2000.
Speaker 2:The first time I competed in a military sporting event, we were in Switzerland in 2000,. The first time I competed in a military sporting event, we were in Switzerland and he was running from fifth place into third place and when he passed the guy that was in third place, the running 3000 meter run was right at the end. He didn't stop and just sort of hold his place. He knew he couldn't get to second. He put the afterburners on and and he basically wanted to humiliate the guy behind him. He spent the entire rest of the night throwing up okay. So this is the level of of like warrior ethos that chad had, which is why he went into special operations, why he did so many combat deployments, why he served with such distinction. So you know I I believe if we're recruiting these people in, they're going to be the highest quality people we can get into some of these jobs.
Speaker 1:No, it's super interesting, right Again. I think again, this is purely anecdotal, at least from my side right now, right. But again, the large majority of the Navy football team ends up as Marine Corps officers, right, and a large majority, some of my really close friends, are now, you know, captains in the Marine Corps infantry or kind of made their way over to MARSOC, right. And then you have a bunch of the lacrosse guys, the wrestler guys, et cetera, who end up as SEALs, right. Water polo and swimmers are a bunch of our EOD guys that are swimming a ton Right, and so it's again. It's an interesting perspective there, perspective there. And do you, I mean, do you happen to know off the top of your head, data wise, like, how many flag officers across our military kind of have a athletic background, whether that be in college or high school or anything of the sort?
Speaker 2:I don't know the total actual numbers, but I do know it's disproportionately high. But that makes sense If you actually look at like society as a whole. There was an Ernst Young study a few years ago that showed that 94% of female executives this is in the private sector, 94% participated in organized sports, growing up with 50% playing sports in college. So whether you're going to the highest levels of business or the highest levels of the military, sports training is absolutely foundational. And I think it's because sports are pretty brutal and you know you have a winner and a loser and you know, I'm 100% sure some of the lowest points in your life have come in sports from losing and the highest points have come from winning. And you also know that 99.99% of everything is not the game, it's getting ready for the game, it's having your act together.
Speaker 2:These are the lessons that athletes learn in sports, that they tend to take on with them. And again, you can't divorce that from the athlete. You can't. You know you can't say okay, you know suddenly you're, you're out of sports, you've you've forgotten everything you learned about hard work. You've forgotten everything you've learned about teamwork or coachability or the ability to give feedback to a teammate and gain their respect so that you can make each other better. These are all some of the greatest skills to create great leaders.
Speaker 1:Foundational and again, I talk about this a lot that, like being a junior officer in the military, one of the number one things you have to do is not one, not be afraid of conflict, but to be really good at having difficult conversations with people when people are not meeting the mark, or upholding state like the standard that needs to be, and that is something that you build through sport, right, like the amount of times you have to go to a teammate and like get on someone. Or like, again, it's like, hey, if we want to, like no, this isn't, this isn't personal, but if we want to win, right, like, if we want to win, then I need you to to play your role, and your role needs to be done extremely well. And like, again, this is something that we've talked about a lot right, and I need you to perform in this way. And on the same front, I was sharing a story last night, actually, with a West Point guy here in Texas. We went out, we got dinner and we were sharing stories about basketball and how the preparation was one of the wildest things. We even went back to our high school days, where our high school coaches had printed out these scouting reports right, like the most detailed, in-depth scouting reports of all time. We competed on like really good high school teams as well in our area and it was like it was crazy, but we would spend hours learning tendencies of the players that we were going to play against, both as a team, as a unit, as an organization.
Speaker 1:But the individual, like hey, when number 12 gets the ball on the left wing, he's going to be driving right into the middle of the lane, right, like knowing that each player has a tendency, has something that they do that is backed up by a ton of observation in film and study. Right, like when it comes to winning a basketball game. There is so much preparation that goes into it. Whether you want to compare that to an intelligent side of the military, right. But you have to know, you have to observe, you have to study and then you have to prepare yourself to be able to take away what they do well, right and like. There's so much comparison in that world.
Speaker 2:And there's the other. The other one is a is a four letter word that has become completely unwelcome in much of the modern military, which is risk and the. The military, you know, the last couple of decades, from what I've seen has has really hunkered down and become a very anti-risk set of organizations. And yet we need our leaders to have the ability to understand, know and manage risk. And in sports you have to know that. In basketball it's understanding am I going to pass the ball, am I going to shoot? And risk doesn't mean you succeed. Every time I sort of jokingly say I talk to senior officers who will tell me we're allowed to take risks as long as you never fail. And the greatest things I've ever learned in my life were not successes in sports, they were failures. And sports gives you a chance to fail and to learn how to handle that, to learn how to get better because of it. And I think we have, for a variety of reasons, I don't think it's any one person, I think culturally, the military has adopted an anti-risk position and there's some reasons for that.
Speaker 2:My former service. We fly airplanes that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and so you don't necessarily want a 26-year old flying an F-22 to take a lot of risk, but on the other hand, they need to understand what it is, because there may come a day when we need them to take some risk and evaluate it and understand the components of that. So in my private sector world, I deal with risk all the time and and I I do believe that that's one of the one of the greatest lessons sports can teach you is is understanding risk, accepting it and being able to look at something and say you know what? I'm going to fail? I'm going to fail a lot and I have to be able to stomach that because in the military, we need you to be able to understand that concept, because when we need you to succeed, we really need you to succeed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, 100%. It's fascinating, and so we really have established again, leading up to this conversation, the importance of sport right and so, especially as it comes to military, military culture et cetera. Now I do want to tailor to something again that you had brought up early, which is this idea of a world military games potentially being hosted in the United States. I want to turn it over to you, if you're willing, to share as much as you can again your thought kind of the plan or pathway where it would be located, sports et cetera, highlight the importance of it and put out if there's anything we can do as a community as well to support it, to try and make this event as good as it can possibly be.
Speaker 2:Well, we have a unique opportunity. Because of my friendship with the president of the International Military Sports Federation. They have offered us, the United States, the opportunity to host the 2027 World Military Games. It'll be hosted in Charlotte, north Carolina, predominantly at the UNC Charlotte campus. We're planning right now on the opening ceremonies being at the Raceway in Charlotte and closing ceremonies might be at Panther Stadium. We're still looking at that, but I mean, grant, you walked in the opening ceremonies in China. They do it right. I walked in, they do it right.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you, that thing was the craziest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I walked in the opening ceremonies in the Beijing Olympics and I mean, if you wanted to say a defining moment of my life, you know three defining moments. The second I threw my hat up in the air at the Air Force Academy when I married my wife. And then walking into opening ceremonies, they're just amazing. So the opening ceremonies we anticipate 120,000 people at the Raceway in Charlotte. We anticipate the President of the United States will open this. I mean we want to show China. Hey, we can play here too, and we're hoping to have a major military air show there, maybe a major rock concert and country concert. Can't say yet who we're looking at for that, but that level because I want.
Speaker 2:You had 120 nations who went and saw the might of China in 2019. And my goal is to have those same countries come over and see what the United States of America can do. So I want them to see F-22s and, you know, the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds, and see what our air power can do, what our military can do. And then I also want them to see the softer side of America, that we're great people. We're, you know it's a great country to come, you know, to come to, because I want, I want those militaries to think twice.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, carrot and stick. I want them to think twice before they ever think about attacking us. On the other hand, I want them to think those guys are pretty nice. Um, so the plan right now is is to have the 2027 world military games in Charlotte, in, uh, in, probably in July, or sorry, in June, and you'll appreciate this. We're hoping to house all the athletes together in one village to be able to promote this idea of the exchange between all the various different service members, forming these connections. We're hoping to have all the venues actually within walking distance, because I know one of the issues they had in Wuhan was that it was really hard to get around.
Speaker 1:Really spread out. I mean hours apart. You were taking buses, trains. It was difficult to you know, get to your stadium right and then back to the village.
Speaker 2:And so our plan right now is to have everything inside one enormous venue, and that's great for the participants. It's also great for the spectators. This is not a well-known sport. People aren't going to pay 50 bucks to go watch a judo competition, but they might pay 50 or 75 bucks for an entry ticket to come in and watch a basketball game, a track, some skydiving, orienteering, some of these sports that they don't get to see every day.
Speaker 2:So, additionally, the plan right now is to do something that has not been done before, which is to combine an international military expo at the same time, which would be in downtown Charlotte, and so we would have the major US defense contractors there down there. We probably also have them displays inside the large venue. So again, young people, kids I have a 10-year-old son, he'd love this to come in and see a drone up close or a satellite presentation. So we want to showcase this for Americans as well, to come in and see the might of our military, to see the United States go beat other countries on the field of play, carry ourselves with pride. But it's going to be a pretty major undertaking.
Speaker 2:We're hosting the Olympics in 2028. This will be, as I said, the second largest games that have ever been held in the United States, only behind the Olympics. So we're a little behind the eight ball in timing because we've been waiting on some final government approvals. The incoming Trump administration has assured us we're going to have those approvals very quickly. Then we're moving forward with. You know, there's a lot of federal agencies, state agencies involved. You know, when you're bringing Russians and Iranians and North Koreans and Germans all together, it's very positive, but it's a lot of moving pieces.
Speaker 1:A lot of moving pieces, yeah, a lot of contingency plans you got to build. How do we build the energy behind this event? How do we get eyeballs onto this, how do we build support for this and how do we turn this into again an event that the average American would tune in to watch Again, hopefully, you get people there in person, but how do you again, how do we actually build support around this event?
Speaker 2:Well, that's one of the things that we're working on doing. The Chinese they held this major event, but it was very insular, as you saw. They didn't have a lot of outsiders, and our vision for this is to really open this up much more. We've been talking to broadcast partners. We do believe we've got several that are interested in coming on board. So part of what I've got to do is I've got to match the broadcast partner with the funding sources for that, because a lot of this is very missional and so, um, you know it's not. They just don't know. Can we go sell 30 million dollars of advertising? Probably not. Um, so we're looking at streaming platforms, things like that. Uh, we're also just looking at getting the word out.
Speaker 2:That's why I appreciate what you're doing, having me on, because your listeners are a lot of our target people and, and we believe that by connecting with business owners, whether it's defense contractors or whoever, the more partners we bring in on this, the more they're going to promote it.
Speaker 2:We're already talking to some of the major banking enterprises out there, because they will help us defense contractors, these major corporations. They have the ability to also help promote this, which is good from a commercial point of view, it's great also to promote this and showcase what the United States and the US military can do. So we have, as I said, a little bit of an abbreviated time schedule, but, if you know, for anybody who's listening to this, if you're like, wow, this is super interesting, I want to get involved. I run a company We'd be interested in coming on board as a commercial partner, that type of thing. We want to talk because this is going to be an all-hands effort to get this thing off the ground and really show the world how great America can be with us 100%, and obviously anyone listening.
Speaker 1:you can always reach out to me and I will get you in touch with Eli, but if someone wants to reach out to you directly about these questions or has an interest in potentially supporting this project, how can they get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Best way is shoot me an email. My personal email is just my name at Gmail. It's elibremmer E-L-I dot B-R-E-M-E-R. At gmailcom. And you know, particularly if you're, if you got some strategic, you know, compatibility with us of some site.
Speaker 2:You know we're not signing our large sponsors yet. We are still looking for some bid sponsors. We're hoping we've applied to be in the presidential inauguration parade which is run by the U S military. Um, we've got about 25 Olympians and we've got some pro athletes that have signed up, uh, to help promote this concept of the, the military warrior athlete. So, um, you know the because we haven't fully confirmed, but let's just say there's a, there's some famous Annapolis grads that are super interested, that have a strong history in Olympics and in pro sports and, as I said, we've got some gold medalists who are military members, who who intend to come out. So you know, if that's something you're interested in, if you want to support that, reach out to me. Because again we are, because again we don't have any government funds on this right now. Eventually there will be, but we are having to raise some capital around this. So if that's something you're interested in, shoot me an email and we'd love to chat.
Speaker 1:I love it. Well, I appreciate it, and something I always ask whenever we bring someone on is again, at the end of the day, some of our listeners as well, who are probably interested in this, are just prospective high school students who are trying to learn a little bit about the academy as well. So I just want to turn this opportunity again. Based on all these life experiences that we've had as a result of being an Air Force Academy and a Naval Academy graduate, what's your best recruiting pitch about why young men and women should consider a service academy education?
Speaker 2:Can you see what's on my hands here? That's an Olympic ring. That's my Olympic ring. That's my Air Force ring. This one means a whole lot more to me than this one. I've been to the Olympics. I've been top of the world in sports. I've done all that and I will tell you that the service academy, the people you will meet there, are simply unparalleled. It is, in my opinion, is the epitome of what a young man or woman can do with their lives, and so, if they're considering it, take it seriously, respect it.
Speaker 2:I grew up next to the Air Force Academy. The people my biggest mentors were Air Force Academy cadets. My brother went to the Air Force Academy and so I had great respect for it. One of my lifetime mentors is Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell. He gave me my nomination to the Academy. He's also a military Olympian. He competed in the Olympics in 1964 while he was in the Air Force.
Speaker 2:So there are some great things you can do in your life. I've had the opportunity, as I said, to do amazing things in my life. Graduating from a United States Service Academy is probably the top of that pinnacle. So you know, I would encourage you. You know, are you going to have as much fun at a service academy as you will at some of the other schools you get scholarships to, I sure hope not doors that it opens. I mean from you know people I've been able to meet united states senators, billionaires, uh, professional athletes, I mean across the board the network I've got, I mean grant.
Speaker 2:The reason we're on the call today is you and I both wear the same, effectively the same, ring. And if you're a young person, if you're the parent of a young person and you want to set your kid up for life the beauty of a service academy. My extended family came out of the Ivy Leagues. My mom and my dad are both Ivy League educated. You can buy your way into an Ivy League. You can't buy your way into or out of a service academy. And so if you want to be respected for the rest of your life, go to a service academy, kick butt at a service academy, serve your country. It is one of the greatest things you can do.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, absolutely Well, Eli, you're the man. Thank you so much for taking this time today. I want to turn it over to you If you have any last thoughts or things that you wanted to bring up that we may not have weaved into the conversation, naturally, so I'll just turn it over to you for any any last thoughts that you may have.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, thanks, thanks for having me on. You know, I always appreciate the other service academies, remembering that there is one out here in Colorado. I was at an event in Washington DC a couple of years ago for service academy grads and this gal comes in and says oh, you know, I don't know you did you? I think she went to west point. She said did you go to annapolis? I said no. She said, well, this is service academy only. I'm like, come on, but, um, you know, no, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2:And and seriously, if, if you're out there and you're thinking about this and saying, hey, this is something I want to get involved in, this is something I want to get involved in, this is something I want to financially support. Or I got a friend I want to introduce you to. Runs a company. Shoot me an email, I'll say it again. It's elibremmer E-L-I dot B-R-E-M-E-R at gmailcom. It's super easy to reach. Shoot me an email, I'll schedule a call with you. This is a service academy family and we would love to have all the help that we can get pushing this forward, both for the World Military Games and then also hopefully pushing a resurgence of military sports and the warrior ethos that military sports can help create.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. Thank you so much, eli. This has been a pleasure. It's always fun getting to share stories about this and again, when I think back on it, the World Military Games was my dad and I were talking about it the other day as I was preparing for this interview like the coolest life experience we've ever had, and it's not even close Like he came out to China to be a part of it. He was there for the two weeks like came and traveled to all the games. There's nothing like it. And so, again, to promote the event, to bring as much attention to it and to build a pipeline of military sports culture again, to dominate in these events and compete at an extremely high level is just something I can get behind every day of the week.
Speaker 2:Grant, when you walked into the opening ceremonies, were y'all chanting USA, USA.
Speaker 1:USA the whole time man.
Speaker 2:Isn't that just one of the greatest feelings Chills.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you. There's a picture of us marching around, because it was like a massive track around. We did a huge loop carrying the American flag, all 100-plus athletes of us in our military uniforms, chanting USA as we were walking in. Literal chills, right, literal chills, as the stadium was, just you know, roaring with energy.
Speaker 2:And you will never forget that. For the rest of your life. You'll never forget that feeling. None of those other young men will ever forget that feeling, and that's what I want to bring, as I said, to the next generation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, absolutely Well. This has been incredible. Thank you so much. Can't wait to hopefully get some people over in your way and support this initiative. So I appreciate you taking the time this morning to talk about it and I can't wait to bring it to life, and you best believe I'm going to be in Charlotte in 2027. I'm excited to be a part of this in whatever way I can, and go witness some of this amazing stuff that's coming to life.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate it. We'll be happy to have you there. Academy Insider is welcome anywhere. I love it.
Speaker 1:My guy. I appreciate you All right. Well, thank you so much to the Academy Insider audience. I hope you had a good listen. Reach out with any questions. Otherwise, have a great day. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. Thank you.
