Grand Forks base medical chief is fitness guru

• Fit to serve

Lt. Col. Daniel Kulund demonstrates exercises with a tube filled with 10 pounds of sand, which is about the same weight and length of an M-16 rifle. Kulund, at age 68, is believed to be the oldest active-duty airman in the U.S. Air Force. Eric Hylden / Grand Forks Herald

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GRAND FORKS, N.D. – Lt. Col. Daniel Kulund, who at age 68 is believed to be the oldest active-duty airman in the U.S. Air Force, has invented a physical exercise regimen that could become part of a national Air Force training program.

He already credits the Virtual Military Obstacle Course with helping him to receive several extensions of mandatory Air Force active-duty retirement. He’s cleared to serve until he’s 70.

Kulund, chief of the medical staff at the 319th Medical Group at Grand Forks Air Force Base since 2007, is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon who left private practice and teaching in Virginia and re-enlisted in the Air Force when he was 53.

Over the past several years, Kulund has developed the VMOC, which consists of a series of strength and calisthenic movements that help prepare airmen for fighting duty.

The program includes his own Air Force Fighting Stick M-16 and M-4 rifle simulators. It will be entered in a health innovations program competition in January at an annual military health conference.

The “fighting sticks” are designed to simulate the size, weight and balance of M-16 and M-4 rifles of the U.S. military. They’re made from PVC pipe, cut to the length of the rifles and filled with sand. The M-16 fighting stick, for example, is 40 inches long and weighs 10 pounds, about the same as an M-16 rifle.

“Military obstacle courses oftentimes require awkward positions, so a person can get hurt,” he said. “That’s really not a practical way of physical training.”

Kulund knows physical training.

In 2007, at age 66, he registered a perfect score for his age group – 55 and older – on his annual military physical fitness test for the second straight year, running 1½ miles in 10 minutes and 15 seconds; and completing 45 push-ups and 45 sit-ups in one minute for each exercise.

“That was the cool thing, especially the score when I was 66 that put me in the ‘excellent’ fitness category for a 25-year-old,” he said.

Kulund was serving at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida at the time. He came to Grand Forks a few months later. Besides running the GFAFB Medical Center, he also trains Air Force physical trainers on base.

Over the past 20 months, he and Denae Grove, an exercise physiologist and director of the Grand Forks Air Force Base Health and Wellness Center, have trained 278 training leaders.

He doesn’t have a count, but he expects that as those squadron training leaders have transferred to other bases, they have taken the VMOC and the “fighting stick” program with them.

Kulund received a medical degree in 1968 from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

After being accepted for an orthopedic surgery internship and residency at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University, he was drafted into the military. Rather than going to Vietnam, the military allowed him to continue his residency.

In 1973, he was sent to Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, where he served as chief of orthopedics. He also served as an assistant professor at the University of Virginia, where he founded the Runners’ Clinic with his wife, Sandy, who also is a physical training and conditioning instructor.

The Kulunds also trained U.S. Olympics rowing teams, as well as thousands of other college and Olympic athletes.

While in Virginia, Kulund wrote the 600-page orthopedic textbook, “The Injured Athlete.” He and his wife have two grown sons, both of whom are professional musicians.

In 1993, after their sons graduated from high school, Kulund quit private practice and re-enlisted in the Air Force.

He was sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, treating troops injured in Somalia and Bosnia. While there, he and Sandy developed what they called the Battle-Focused Physical Training packaged for deployed military personnel. Over the next six years, they trained Air Force, Army and Navy personnel throughout Europe.

Kulund, who will be 69 at the end of December, isn’t testing the retirement age issue as a matter of principle. He simply hopes to serve until he gets his full Air Force military retirement – serving 20 years since his 1993 re-enlistment.

“I didn’t feel old until I found out I was the oldest,” Kulund said of the age distinction he recently learned about. The Air Force has about 330,000 active-duty airmen.

“Actually, I don’t feel old,” he said. “It’s a state of mind.”

Kevin Bonham is a writer for the Grand Forks Herald, which is owned by Forum Communications Co.

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