Ol'Harry

OLYMPIAN IN OUR MIDST

While Colonel Guy Troy, U.S. Army (Retired) was a late bloomer as a modern pentathlon athlete, it did not keep him from winning a gold medal in the very first Pan American Games 1951 in Buenos Aires.  It wasn’t lost on Troy that another Armored Army officer finished fifth overall in the same sport in the 1912 Olympics at Stockholm.  That soldier’s name was Patton.

“Having served as a Cavalry Platoon Leader in Europe, I would have been happy if the Army had sent me directly to the Korean War from Buenos Aires after the Pan-Am Games.  Instead, they sent me to West Point to form and recruit a modern pentathlon team and start training for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki,” Troy recalled from his home in Liberty, North Carolina.

Perchance you know more about shooting baskets or pool than pentathloning, here are the Cliff’s Notes of competitive events: Fencing, pistol shooting, 200 meter free-style swim, 4000 meter horseback ride with 25 jumps, and 4000 meter cross-country run.

During Olympic try-outs, player/coach Troy did well his first two days, “I was first in fencing, second in shooting, and sixth in swimming.  I was about six years older than most of the runners and came in eighth.  My wheels did not run off in the horseback competition, but my horse did – she fell about half way to the finish line.”

TROY POINTS TO TAG REPRESENTING
 HORSE HE DREW IN 1952 OLYMPICS

Troy finished fourteenth in individual completion and coached his team to a fourth place position in those 1952 Summer Olympics, “Actually, we tied with Finland for third, but they won the bronze medal because they beat us in the cross-country.”

He holds no grudges against his Olympic steed, “That horse had some age on her.  She did the best she could.  After all, she was one of 14 hand-me-downs sent to us from Fort Riley, Kansas.”

At 93, and retired to his Liberty, North Carolina farm, Troy is still an Olympic enthusiast.  “Will I be watching the events in Rio de Janeiro?  You bet!”  

FORMER OLYMPIAN GUY TROY RECEIVED
EARLY COPY OF 2016 PROGRAM FROM RIO

He has served in many Olympic capacities, including event judging in 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1990.  He fondly recalls witnessing the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid. 

Even though the Pan American Games and Olympic competition kept Troy from Korea, he later commanded an Armored Reconnaissance Unit.  He served in Vietnam as intelligence officer for the 25^th Infantry Division in 1967-1968.

Although Troy is a graduate of West Point, he originally enlisted as an aviation cadet in the Army Air Corps in 1942.

“I already knew how to fly.  When the war started, I knew I wanted aviation.”  During aviation training, he was selected for the Academy in 1943 and graduated in 1946.  He served Cold War assignments in Germany and Austria before and after his pentathlon competition.  In 1959-1960 he served as a Military Adviser in Iran.

Troy married Winifred Hildegarde Charles, who died in 2009.  They had two sons, Guy K. Troy Jr., a West Point graduate and retired military, and Thaddeus W. Troy, a 30-year CIA employee.  There are four Troy grandchildren.

FRANK HEBERER (L) AND GUY TROY
TWO RETIRED COLONELS WHO SERVED TOGETHER IN
CONSTABULARY FORCE AFTER WW II

Troy’s father, Dr. Thaddeus Troy, practiced medicine in Greensboro for many years.  He and Dr. Wesley Long III were cousins.  Dr. Troy served in World War I and retired from the Army Reserve as a colonel.

There is another colonel of interest in Guy Troy’s lineage – Colonel Andrew Balfour.  According to Troy, ‘He is my great-great-great grandfather.” Balfour’s tombstone on Doul Mountain in Randolph County reads, “ …murdered by a band of Tories at his home.”

Balfour’s execution by the notorious loyalist leader, David Fanning, was one of many such incidents in the Piedmont wherein Whigs were gunned down during the unofficial “Tory War” in early 1782.  It has not gone unnoticed by the folks of Randolph County.  An Asheboro community is named in Balfour’s memory, as is a DAR Chapter and Masonic Lodge.

Obviously, Troy is a man of many interests – in his Liberty environs of several hundred acres, he has farmland and timberland, “Right now, I would have to say, my passion is forestry!” 

He has his own tennis courts.  Even though he has ample room for a golf course, he opted out, “Golf takes too much of my day – I have other things to do.”

Troy is a founder and active member of All Souls Anglican Church in Asheboro.  He also serves with the Randolph County Honor Guard, which conducts hundreds of military funerals each year for veterans across the Piedmont.  He is active with the West Point Society.

RETIRED ARMY COLONELS  FRANK HEBERER AND GUY TROY AT
TROY'S FARMHOUSE IN LIBERTY, NC
DECEMBER, 2015