 We knew that it was getting more and more crowded and on Everest especially at on summit day waiting in line is deadly You are eating up all of your resources, but you're not gaining any elevation We got out of our tents at 26,000 feet. There was already a line of headlamps going up the mountain In 97 I graduated from Mercer Island High School little island in a big lake, Washington right next to Seattle And I always wanted to fly but I've grown up loving the outdoors. So the Air Force Academy seemed like the perfect combination of great education Beautiful 18,000 acre campus up in the mountains and then a high probability of being able to fly When I was at the Air Force Academy, I joined the mountaineering club That's where I climbed my first 14,000 foot peak and just started to fall in love with it It also scared me a few times and helped me understand my limits that you're not indestructible When I graduated I Went to the Everest region in Nepal just wanted to backpack around there No interest in climbing anything, but when I saw the peaks in the Himalayas, I was like whoa It's intoxicating was in my heart was in my my gut my intuition said You should come back and climb this mountain for something greater than just like a personal conquest Let's create an American military mountaineering team We'll do something that no other team has ever even attempted which would be to climb the highest point in every continent a Team of six seasoned Air Force mountaineers planned a summit Mount Everest on a 50-day journey They will be the first American military team to attempt Everest and if successful the first military team to have climbed each continent's highest mountain On summit day there was already a line of headlamps going up the mountain So we knew that worst-case scenario in terms of crowding was happening But we as a team agreed we have the skill and we have the confidence and we have the safety Analysis that will unclip From our rope the one safety rope up there and we'll free climb around these people It was definitely the most physically demanding thing I've ever done in my life and the timing was perfect The Sun was rising Just cresting over the over the horizon and it was surreal it was a Vision that I had as a second lieutenant standing at the base of Everest in 2001 and it's now 2013 and I'm walking to the summit got a little emotional teared up now. I was probably a little hypoxic at 29,000 feet But it just showed that when you have a vision and you have a dream and you put your heart into it that you Can overcome any challenge Everybody it's major Rob Marshall with the United States Air Force and the Air Force 7 summits challenge We're on top of Mount Everest. I had so much energy when I got to the top of Everest. I wanted to keep going higher I couldn't so it only made sense to do the push-ups I don't want to do anymore and pass out God bless America go Air Force