The Long Blue Line (Spring 2024)

In the military, and
in the Coast Guard
Reserve in particular,
training ensures that
when units are in active
operations and something
unexpected happens,
training kicks in, and
the response becomes
automatic.
For two Coast Guard reservists, this
applies to another area—boxing.
Reserve members Chief Warrant
Officer Anthony Birds and Petty Officer
Second Class TJ Van Alstyne have a lot
in common. They are athletic with law
enforcement backgrounds; they’ve both
pursued careers as educators; they’re
serving in the Coast Guard Reserve at
deployable port security units; and they
both love the challenge and absolute
thrill of being in the ring against an
opponent.
With 25 years of military service and
more than a decade in the boxing ring,
Birds is the slightly more seasoned of
the two. His easy-going nature and calm
demeanor are contagious, and it’s easy
to see how he’d fare under pressure.
But he didn’t originally lean toward
the competitive side of boxing. As
an instructor at the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center in
Charleston, South Carolina, he started
boxing as a way to keep himself agile
and sharp. Frederick Gray, another
instructor and former boxer, began
training Birds on the basics: stance,
footwork, reactions, heavy bag, and
speed bag.
After a number of years, Birds became
increasingly faster and better—to the
point that Gray told him, “You should
probably compete.”
“I didn’t feel ready,” said Birds, but Gray
convinced him otherwise. They decided
to give it a shot in one of the local
competitions in 2015. He remembers
when he first set foot in the ring, he was
nervous.
“Training and actually being in there
with someone trying to knock your block
off are two totally separate things,” Birds
said with a laugh.
Training and
actually being
in there with
someone trying
to knock your
block off are two
totally separate
things.
“That first round, I was trying to work out
my strategy, even though we’d worked
on it for weeks,” he said. “It’s like a big
chess match where you’re watching the
other person. You're trying to figure out
what moves they're making and counter
it. Your brain is going a thousand miles
an hour trying to decipher all these
movements. Then BAM! I got hit with a
big left hook, and I thought, ‘Okay, that
one hurt—this is real now.’"
RESERVE
U.S. COAST GUARD INFORMATION
THE LONG BLUE LINE SPRING 2024
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