AARP Hearing Center
When he was drafted into the Navy in 1964, Stephen Wertheimer was a bookish and unathletic medical student who was planning to become a DNA researcher.
Getty Images/AARP
You can subscribe here to AARP Veteran Report, a free e-newsletter published every two weeks. If you have feedback or a story idea then please contact us here.
At age 24, he found basic training very arduous. “Jumping off ladders into the ocean, swimming underwater to avoid burning oil on the surface,” the father of six recalls to the AARP Veteran Report. “I could barely swim!”
But he went on to serve 2 tours as a flight surgeon on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. The carrier’s helicopter squadron flew rescue missions into Vietnam, and Wertheimer operated on trauma patients, often without anesthetic. Occasionally he flew on missions himself. “I did a lot of ducking,” he says.
Such an experience could break a young draftee. Instead, it made Wertheimer. “I enjoyed it so much I decided to become a practicing physician,” he says. He became an orthopedic surgeon and now — 50 years on at age 84 — he still runs his own practice in Long Beach, California.
The discipline and determination Wertheimer learned in his years in the Navy did more than shape his professional career. By his own account, he was “needing physical exercise” when he got out of the service. He took up cycling for a few years and then started running so he could spend less time keeping fit.
Wertheimer has never gone for speed. He completed his first marathon in 1978 at age 40, crossing the line just a second or so ahead of the oldest finisher, who was 80.
In 2021 Wertheimer became the oldest man to complete the New York City Marathon, finishing in 8 hours and 41 seconds; Albert Korir of Kenya won in 2 hours and 8 minutes.
Next week, at age 84, he will run it again. It will be his 60th marathon in 45 years and his 39th New York City Marathon.
Joining Wertheimer in New York next week will be his daughter Erin, 39, whose own running career is inspired by her father.
