Transformed by terrorism at the ’72 Munich Olympics

Thomas McMillen had his first brush with terrorism as a member of the 1972 U.S. Olympic Basketball Team when terrorists raided the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany, kidnapping and later killing 11 Israeli athletes.

Prior to the morning of Sept. 5, 1972, Thomas McMillen was like most of his counterparts on the U.S. Olympic Basketball Team, excited to represent his country and looking forward to hopefully taking home a gold medal.

After that morning, however, his view on the Games as well as our nation’s security would never be the same as terrorists broke into the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany, taking hostage and later killing 11 Israeli athletes.

"I was 20 years old, and I said to myself ‘[terrorism] is coming to America’," McMillen said. "I said terrorism is something we’re going to have to learn to live with and that was my first thought. Those attacks were what Rudy Giuliani called the start of modern terrorism, so having been there when it all began is kind of ironic in an interesting way."

Looking back at the 1972 Munich Olympics, McMillen said that it was hard for him and his teammates to continuing playing the games with what had happened to the Israeli athletes in the back of their minds.

"It was a frightening experience because they kept saying there were going to follow up with attacks and bombs and so forth," he said. "You were kind of mindful of security and you never thought about that before. Who would have thought the Olympics would have been a place for an attack?"

With his experience with terror forever emblazoned on his memories of the 72 Olympic Games, McMillen -- a former NBA player and Maryland congressman -- formed Homeland Security Capital Corporation, a company dedicated to outfitting the homeland security industry with the latest security detection technologies and services.

McMillen said that his company is primarily involved with nuclear and radiation clean-up and with the production of portable radiation detection products.