Okay. So Sam Kendricks isn’t any run-of-the-mill Olympian. He’s actually a United States Army soldier. Reservist to be exact — 2nd Lieutenant to be even more exact.

The other day, in Rio, he ended a 12-year drought for the U.S. team in pole vault, placing third and earning the bronze medal in the event after hard rain delayed the competition for over an hour.

The proud military member successfully cleared 5.85 meters, about 20 feet.

Damn impressive, isn’t it?

What was even more impressive was the following action — Kendricks stopping his practice vault before the final in an instant when he heard the American national anthem playing in another part of the stadium:

More from SB Nation:

Coming into this Olympiad, Kendricks had notched the second-highest vault of 2016 at 19’5-1⁄ 4 and then bested Tim Mack’s U.S. Olympic qualifying meet record back on July 4th with a vault of 19’4-3⁄ 4. Kendricks made headlines earlier this summer after qualifying for the Rio Games and electing to prepare for the competition in Oxford rather than train at the USA Track & Field facilities in Houston, Texas. “You go to all these places in the world and you get tastes of Stade Louis in Monaco, which is one of the nicest outdoor track facilities in the world, or you go to Ireland and they have a beautiful indoor facility for track and field or you go to Germany and they have all these clubs,” said Kendricks, who won two national championships while at Ole Miss from 2012 to 2014.

An alum of the University of Mississippi, the six-foot-one inch medalist, 23, was an Ole Miss ROTC cadet and a national champion between 2012 and 2014. Pretty incredible considering he walked on the team as a freshman after graduating high school in his hometown of Oxford.