Guor Maker has a very unique life story. Maker has had to overcome great challenges and hardships including escaping slavery. But through those times, he has now risen and made a life for himself in the United States. He went on to earn a college education, he competed twice in the Olympics, and he now using this new life to give back by joining the US Air force.
Maker was a refugee from the South Sudan. He was captured and enslaved twice in his youth. He said that as a slave, he was enslaved into labor and was forced to wash dishes or other chores to get by. He would also sleep in a small cell and rarely got to eat. He had escaped his life as a slave twice and made it to the United States.
“I was very excited to come to the U.S.,” said Maker. “Looking back at everything my family and I endured; it is a miracle that we made it out of there.”
In the states, he first learned how to speak English as a first step. Then he enrolled in high school where he would be introduced to competitive running. He would develop his running skills to such a high level that he competed in the Olympics. He ran the marathon as an unaffiliated athlete in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and again as an athlete for South Sudan for the men’s marathon at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. His next goal is to join the ranks of the United States Air force as a way of giving back to the country that have him so much.