Five Questions: A salute to veterans with ex-Broncos OL Ben Garland
Nov 11, 2019, 6:00 AM
Last week, ahead of Veterans Day, Sports Radio 104.3 The Fan caught up with former Denver Broncos and current San Francisco 49ers guard Ben Garland.
Garland, a native of Grand Junction and standout at the Air Force Academy, signed with the Broncos in 2010 but did not see the field in the NFL until after serving two years of active duty.
Upon his return, Garland played a handful of seasons with Denver before landing with the Atlanta Falcons in 2015 and San Francisco this season, all the while continuing to serve in the Colorado Air National Guard.
Here is Garland’s conversation with 104.3 The Fan digital content producer Johnny Hart:
Digital content producer Johnny Hart: It seems as if everyone has a unique perspective on Veterans Day. As a member of the U.S. armed forces, along with your grandfather also serving in the Air Force, what does the day specifically mean to you?
San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Ben Garland: It’s a day to honor the veterans. I mean, all the people most in my life are veterans. Family members. I’ve got the people I served with. Some of the people I love most in my life are veterans. So, it’s just a day to honor them and recognize them.
Hart: You had the option of continuing your military service as an officer in the Air Force or pursuing your dream of playing in the NFL. You chose the latter, obviously. Now, nearly a decade later, do you believe you made the right choice? Or, better put, do you ever think about what may have been if you opted to go the other way?
Garland: Yeah, I would have stayed the pilot route and gone to pilot training. I would have had a very different life. I mean, I still talk to some of my friends who went the pilot training route. They’ve traveled the world and had missions everywhere in different countries. They’ve had an incredible time. It definitely would have been a cool life to go the pilot route, but I’m definitely happy with the decision I made … and go into a different career field with public affairs.
Hart: The Waldo Canyon Fire took your grandparents’ home and, along with it, the sabers presented to you upon graduation from the Air Force Academy. They’re supposed to be irreplaceable, but an exception was made in your case. Did it surprise you that, one, the Air Force made such an exception and, two, that your Denver Broncos teammates did something like that for you?
Garland: I was living with my grandparents at the time, and we lost my grandparents’ home in the Waldo Canyon Fire. It was really devastating because it was my grandparents’. They had all our family heirlooms. They had a safe in the basement which had the weapons from all of the previous Garlands who had served in the wars from World War I all the way to Vietnam. It was really tough on my family.
I was shocked and really blown away. It meant a lot to me, especially having my teammates do that. The fact that the Academy made an exception to give me an additional set of sabers … The sabers mean a lot. They’re kind of the culmination of your Academy experience you give to somebody who really helped you out. And I gave it to my grandparents. So, losing them was pretty tough. And then, to have my teammates kind of surprise me after practice, I mean, I had no idea what was going on. They kept pushing me forward in the circle, and I didn’t know why they were doing that. But, it meant a lot to me.
Hart: You continue to serve in the Colorado Air National Guard. Is that a requirement or voluntary? And how do you maintain those responsibilities with the grind it takes to be an NFL player?
Garland: The National Guard has been awesome working with me and, obviously, one weekend a month is the usual pick for reserves in the National Guard. But, the weekends are when we play, I’m not really able to maintain that during the season. So, they allow me to do make-up days in the offseason … and I do 48 four-hour blocks to make up for the time I missed during the season.
Hart: The Department of Defense reversed its policy on academy cadets pursuing pro sports immediately upon graduation earlier this year. What do you make of the policy, having served your two years of active duty upon your graduation?
Garland: I think it’d be an incredible policy. … I think some of the best leaders you find are those who learn and get leadership experience just being on the field. There’s nothing like having to make a split-second decision that affects 10 other people on the field, during duress, during a stressful situation, to kind of teach you the basics of leadership once you’re out there leading our troops in the military. It gives you really a safe environment to learn that way. I think by changing the policy, you would get higher recruits with the hopes of making it to the NFL. And in the likelihood is most of them wouldn’t make it, and some of those guys who went with aspiring NFL hopes who didn’t make it but now are incredible leaders, it would affect that opportunity to get that person who pursued other routes and other schools in hopes of joining the NFL. And if we can do both, I think we’re going to get a lot higher recruits. And I think it’s really going to help our team and really help the leaders that come out of the academies.
