A group of 10 American Olympians who serve in the were honored at the Pentagon on April 17.
War Secretary , between leading the efforts in the war on Iran, found time to meet with the athletes for a ceremony to honor their accomplishments in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. All 10 were members of the high-performance U.S. military-sponsored World Class Athlete Program (WCAP).
“It’s not every day you get invited into Sec. War’s office,” U.S. bobsledder Frankie Del Duca told Fox News Digital. “We had a good conversation about the Army.”
Del Duca was the Team USA Olympic flag bearer in Cortina back in February. As an American of Italian descent, it held a special cultural significance to him and his family that he had the honor in .
Del Duca is also a infantryman.
“I’m infantry,” he said. “There’s different assignments I can take as I gain experience. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve. I’m very proud to serve our country, and I love our country and America.”
Hegseth himself was an Army infantry officer who served in , Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.
But so far Del Duca has only ever done athlete work for the military, enlisting in 2019 and training as a bobsledder at Lake Placid, New York. But as a WCAP athlete, he will serve in a military-related role as well.
“We’ve had members of WCAP that have been in the Army first… and then we have some that maybe do that after,” Del Duca said, adding that he falls into the “after” group.
“Where I may be stationed next, and where I may, different assignments, where I might end up, I’m going to take those same lessons that I’ve learned and apply them to that next unit. So it’s something that I’m very grateful for and proud of. And I hope that spreads throughout our country. I hope it shows that we’re together and that we’re resilient, and that we’re fit and we’re ready.”
Del Duca is a young father of two sons who are each less than four years old.
“It’s made me a better father,” Del Duca said of his experience in the Army. “I have two sons, [ages] one and three, they keep me on my toes.”
Other branches of the military are represented well in the WCAP, especially the .
Team USA skeleton athlete Kelly Curtis, who was also honored at the ceremony, is preparing for deployment right back to Italy after competing at the Milan Cortina games.
“I’m going back to the 31st communications squadron at Aviano Air Base,” Curtis told Fox News Digital. “I’m a knowledge operations technician… it’s basically like an information traffic cop.”
Curtis says she has a lineage in her family, on her mother’s side, that includes servicemembers in every American war dating back to the Revolutionary War.
She thought her brother would take on the call of duty for her generation. And he did, but she soon learned she be joining him.
“I didn’t think I would be able to serve in the military,” Curtis said. “When this opportunity came around when I got good enough at my sport. I was looking at the Army program, but upon talking with my brother who had also served in the Air Force, I decided to give it a go for the Air Force.”
Now, as she continues her family tradition of serving in the U.S. military during a time of war, she takes great a sense of honor in the importance.
“I don’t think any particular time is more honorable than an other,” she said. “When I took the oath of enlistment, you sign up to defend your country, and that’s something that I take seriously. The work that I do with the World Class Athlete Program is different, it’s a softer diplomacy, so I don’t see a lot of what my colleagues might see…
“There’s honor all around when you sign up to defend your country.”
The WCAP program delivered a medalist for Team USA at 2026, including Air Force women’s bobsledder Jasmine Jones.
Jones became a viral social media sensation for an interview with Fox News Digital when she expresse
