As an Oriole, Justin Haase achieved a lot. The Conant shot put star was one of the best in the state before graduating in 2015. And before his time was up, he inked his name in the record books with Conant’s best-ever shot put throw. Now, he’s set his sights on something even bigger, and his training at Conant built a foundation for success.
Haase, now a freshman at St. John’s University in St. Joseph, Minnesota, is a member of his school’s Reserve Officer Training Corps, or ROTC as most would know it.
“It’s a way to get your college education if you want to serve,” Haase said during a recent interview at his old stomping grounds, the Conant track and field facility.
Aside from his academic work, pursuing a major in environmental science and a double minor to boot, Haase and the rest of his ROTC team add a class in military science to their load. As a freshman, 18 credits is a lot to take on; add in the PT – pushups, situps, running, what have you – and Haase’s weeks are full during the school year. But without a scholarship coming into his first year of college, Haase knew he had to do all that and more to be considered. So, he volunteered for the color guard, carrying the flag during at football games. He studied hard and ended up with a 3.0 GPA. And, he maxed out his PT, pushing into the highest percentiles.
All that went a long way in the eyes of his instructors, and Haase was extended a scholarship offer; he’ll attend his next three years of college on a full ride before beginning his Army service. The biggest thrills for him, though, have been the Ranger challenges in which he’s competed – and excelled.
“It’s almost like a sport that ROTC organizes,” Haase said of the challenges. Haase made the nine-person St. John’s team – “I was happy to make that team as a freshman, that was big,” he said – and underwent an extensive training period to ready himself. As a shot put thrower in high school, he’d done a lot of strength training, but now, he had to keep that up and add in running – something he said “doesn’t come naturally” to him.
“Now that I’ve been running more, I’m starting to enjoy it,” he said. “You just have to do it until you start to enjoy it. If you think about it, that’s what you need. You have to be running with equipment on, because that’s how you’re going to fight.”
His track coach, Erin Kelly, always pushes her kids to run, a lot, even the throwers, but Haase was resistant.
“I love that he runs now,” Kelly said, “since I was always trying to get him to do more aerobic conditioning and he didn’t want to.”
Nonetheless, his Conant training had prepared him with the mindset necessary to improve, and before long, he’d dropped down from a 14:30 two-mile time to a sub-13 – the top percentile required by the Army. That, combined with his superior strength, had him ready for the Ranger Challenge last fall.
Haase and his team headed to Ft. Ripley for the two-and-a-half day competition. First, they ran a seven-mile “ruck run,” carrying rucksacks loaded with 35 lbs. of gear. His team won that. Then, an simulated IED explosion went off, signifying the start of the next event. The team ran to a Humvee and, with nothing but brute force, pushed it along to a certain area. From there, they ran to an “injured” dummy, loaded it onto a litter and ran security, hauling the body, an instructor running along with them, grading each movement.
“If you drop the litter, that’s points off, if you drop the body, obviously, that’s points off,” Haase said.
The rest of the challenges included shooting, throwing grenades, learning how to line up and clear a building, kick in a door – “Army stuff,” he explained.
“I loved every minute of it,” Haase said.
When it was all over, the St. John’s team had won their division, or “task force,” made up of teams from Minnesota and surrounding states. They went on to compete again, this time at the brigade level, which covers the entire Midwest; Haase’s team came in third.
That might seem like enough physical challenge for a lifetime, but Haase was back at it in April, when he and classmate Caleb Pflug took on the Kansas University Ranger Buddy Challenge. Believe it or not, this was even more intense than the first.
Haase and Pflug drove down to Lawrence, Kansas, stayed in a hotel and then woke up around 3 a.m., loading themselves up with gear and packing their 35-lb. rucksacks up tight. Then, they threw themselves into the field with 110 teams, all looking to be the best of the day.
Right off the bat, it was a nine-and-a-quarter-mile ruck run.
“You just have to mentally push through it,” Haase said, “because it sucks so much, running with all that equipment, running the whole time, not stopping to walk. You just have to push through it in the best time possible while constantly hydrating.”
Haase and Pflug completed the rest of the Buddy Challenge, which was set up similar to the Ranger Challenge, with stations and more “Army stuff” to take on.
They threw more grenades, took some more shots, pulled out the protractors and identified areas on a grid, crawled under barbed wire and called for a simulated medevac.
“You’re doing it in your gear and it’s hot and it takes hours and hours,” Haase said, “it’s really really grueling. A lot of it is very physically challenging.”
After all that, about three-and-a-half-hours of physical exertion, the day was complete – save one final part.
“Then we went over and we have to run a 5K just to end it,” Haase recalled.
Despite all the effort and exertion and pain, Haase is all about the Ranger Challenges.
“It’s real rough while you’re doing it but when you’re done you feel like you can do anything,” Haase said. I’ll definitely be back next year. It’s the best thing you can get without being in an infantry unit or being in a Ranger unit or being in the 101st.”
Haase considers all this to be the first step in becoming an an officer and an Army Ranger and eventually leading a platoon, something that his old track coach saw as a good fit.
“He’s always been a very hard worker,” Kelly said, “and people looked to him as a leader, whether he wanted to lead right then or not.”
Indeed, he’s changed a lot since high school, he says.
“I have a much more clear direction of where I want to go now,” Haase said. “You’ve got to be the best soldier you can be in order to lead others. If you slack off, you’re not going to be a good example for them, and they’re going to slack off. But if they see you’ve gone through the hard stuff and you’re really motivated yourself, that’s only going to motivate them. It’s going to make your unit better, it’s going to make the whole Army better.”
Haase will spend most of his summer in Jaffrey before returning to St. John’s, though he does have one big trip planned, out to Yellowstone National Park.
Even that is as much business as it is pleasure for the young man, as he plans to become a park ranger after his mandatory Army service is complete.
“If I could be leading a search-and-rescue team in Yellowstone, that would be the dream,” Haase said.