Lee Trevino, Marine Corps
In 1955, Lee Trevino was two years removed from dropping out of high school, and still a decade away from playing in the PGA. At the time, he was slinging hotdogs and Cokes at Knollwood Golf Club in Irving, Texas.
And after being caught by a policeman for a petty theft, the officer referred Trevino to a recruiter for the Marine Corps. In a 2009 interview with Golf Digest, Trevino said the four years he spent in the Corps “was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
Chad Hennings, Air Force
Chad Hennings found success both in the military and on the gridiron, given that he was in forty¬ five successful combat missions flying A¬10 jets with the Air Force, and left the Air Force one of the most decorated college football players in NCAA history.
He won the Outland Trophy in his senior year of college in 1987, given to the best lineman in college football, and after being selected in the eleventh round of the 1988 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys, he played in the National Football League from 1992 to 2000, winning three Super Bowls.
Leon Spinks, Marine Corps
Olympic Gold Medalist Leon Spinks had dropped out of high school after making it to the 10th grade, before joining the Marine Corps, in 1973. While he had originally clashed greatly with his instructors in the Marines, he eventually acquiesced to the discipline and lifestyle needed, and would graduate from boot camp and make the All-Marine boxing team.
Then, in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada, Spinks won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division.
Arnold Palmer, US Coast Guard
Long before Arnold Palmer became a household name because of his exploits in golf (and eventually became the first millionaire in the history of the sport), he was a member of the U.S. Coast Guard.
While attending Wake Forest University, he was distraught over his roommate dying in a car accident, and used the U.S. Coast Guard as a means to get away from the situation. Palmer credits the Coast Guard for making him more mature and better able to make an impact on the world, in his own way.
Hank Greenberg, U.S. Army Air Corps
Henry Benjamin Greenberg, known as “Hammerin” Hank Greenberg, was a star slugger for the Detroit Tigers in the 1930’s and 1940’s, who eventually earned election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
But on October 16, 1940, just eight days after he and the Tigers lost Game Seven of the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, Hank registered for the draft, the first professional baseball player to do so. In all, Greenberg served 47 months in the service during World War II, the longest tenure of any ballplayer.
Tom Landry, U.S. Army Air Corps
Before his almost three-decade career coaching the Dallas Cowboys, legendary head coach Tom Landry served as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.
Piloting a B-17 Flying Fortress, Landry often flew missions deep into enemy territory and frequently returned his aircraft with minimum fuel. Between 1944 and 1945, he distinguished himself by flying 30 combat missions over heavily defended targets. After his coaching career, he returned to flying general aviation aircraft.