Whitefish student nears end of West Point years

West Point went wild last week when the world's most wanted terrorist was declared dead.

"When we heard the news of Osama bin Laden's death here on Sunday night, the corps went wild," said Anne Danczyk, a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy.

"Cadets were going nuts," she added. "We had boom boxes and American flags everywhere, and a band sporadically started playing. It was awesome.

"It certainly pumped me up and gave me and my peers here a motivation boost, and we are more spirited here than ever."

Danczyk, a 2007 Whitefish High School graduate, exuded enthusiasm long before a team of Navy SEALs killed bin Laden. Her appreciation for her education and excitement for her future - in the military and outside it - are evident in every syllable.

That Danczyk has thrived at West Point might surprise those who knew her in high school. She was a cross-country runner and a choir member; "the idea of working for the Army sounded like the other end of the pendulum," she said.

But Danczyk's father, Gary, had spent 24 years in the Army, and her mother, Annell, had worked for years as an engineer with the Department of Defense. Danczyk applied to the military academy, her father's alma mater, and was stunned when she was accepted.

"I was ecstatic," she recalled. "I figured, I actually got into this place; I'd better go."

She promised herself that she would stick it out at West Point for a year and take her training one day at a time. But when she started at the academy, Danczyk was impressed with the people there.

"I thought, wow, I want to work with these people," she said. "They're really intense and really loving what they do."

She was further impressed by the unique opportunities she had at the school - impressive chances that balance "all the bull crap you put up with," she said.

Those opportunities include a chance to meet national leaders. Michelle Obama will speak at a banquet May 20, the night before Danczyk graduates. Vice President Joe Biden will hand Danczyk her diploma.

Danczyk also has visited eight countries during her four years at the academy. She has vacationed in Quebec, Puerto Rico, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands and taken school-related trips to four other nations.

In Japan, Danczyk job-shadowed with a small military unit that flies Black Hawk helicopters for VIPs. She was part of a cultural immersion in Ecuador, practiced winter warfare tactics with cadets in Chile and studied Spanish and socioeconomics in Costa Rica.

When she wasn't traveling, Danczyk was busy with extracurricular activities. She sang in the choir for a semester and walked onto the track and cross country teams her first year at West Point.

"That was probably the hardest thing I've done here, because [the competition] is Division I," Danczyk said.

Her attitude toward the team was similar to the spirit that had prompted her to apply for West Point in the first place: She figured she might as well take a shot.

"I made the team ... and was like, well, I guess I'm doing it. I guess I'm going to stick it out," she said. "In the end, competing at that level and lettering, it was like, holy cow, I'm capable. Wow, I'll keep pushing."

Danczyk competed for one season, then switched gears. For three years, she was a member of West Point's alpine ski team, which Danczyk called the best part of her experience at the academy.

"They are like my family," she said.

Among the ski team members, Danczyk felt at home. Her travels around the world have not made her forget the love she has for the Flathead Valley.

"We're the closest to Montanans, the people I consider normal," she said of the ski team.

While Danczyk loved the extracurricular opportunities, she was equally enthusiastic about West Point's military training.

"I love it," she said.

After she graduates and receives her commission as a second lieutenant, Danczyk will have two months off in Montana. Then she will spend six months at Fort Sill, Okla., for officer basic training, then about a month at her first post at Fort Lewis, Wash. After that, Danczyk expects to deploy to Afghanistan.

"I was so stoked to hear that," she said. "You want to go where the troubles are because you think, well, I'll go there and can help fix it. Politics aside, if there's some way that I can improve the situation, that would be awesome."

Eventually, Danczyk hopes to be a Female Engagement Team member. The team, which is connected to special forces, does interrogations and research on Afghan culture, she explained. It sends military women to find information from Afghan women, who are barred by culture from certain interactions with men.

The idea of being in a military hot spot doesn't scare Danczyk, who says she thrives on chaos.

"I'm really confident and way more confident in a live-fire drill, in the mud," she said. "The more chaotic it gets, the calmer I feel."

Despite her love for the military, Danczyk said she doesn't plan on making a career in the Army. She will serve cheerfully for five years, the time required by her time at West Point. Then she hopes to swing back to the opposite side of the pendulum again and find a career as a singer.

"I would love to pursue that dream of classical voice and performing arts. I love that side of stuff, too," she said. "It's not that I want to sell the Army short, but I have other dreams, too, and I do want to do this."

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.