Once the giant king salmon bit Staff Sgt. Nicholas Gleim's line, the battle was on.

From the initial pull at the ocean floor to the tug-of-war that commenced after the 45-pound fish realized that it'd been hooked, Gleim continued reeling the salmon in, clutching the fishing pole even though his arms were starting to feel the sting.

"It's a powerful, powerful fish," said Gleim, a Washington National Guard soldier with the 341st Military Intelligence Battalion headquartered in Tacoma. "It's exciting because you're always feeling like he's going to get away."

Gleim, a 26-year-old Puyallup native, was among a group of guardsmen selected to go on an expenses-paid, three-day fishing trip May 9 to 13 to Sitka, Alaska.

The trip was made possible by the In Harm's Way program, run by Mike and Linda Slifer, who own L&M Charters in Sitka. The husband and wife team host two groups of 20 combat veterans and/or wounded warriors each year, flying the soldiers up to their lodge for three days of chartered fishing for king salmon and halibut.

"I think that everybody on the trip was really humbled by what these people had given to us," said Gleim, who spent 15 months in Iraq from 2006 to 2007.

While Gleim went through a phase of wanting to learn how to fish when he was younger, the desire didn't burn quite as strong as he got older. But the trip to Alaska rekindled that flame.

"I didn't like (fishing) before. I like it now," Gleim said.

For Staff Sgt. Derrick Smith, an avid fisherman who deployed to Iraq for a year in 2006, the trip was quite an upgrade from his local weekend fishing trips on the Puyallup River.

"I was extremely excited," said Smith, a soldier with the 96th Troop Command. "I love fishing so you can't get any better than fishing in Alaska."

Braving 10-foot waves and maintaining a steady dose of Dramamine to help get used to the rocking of the boat, with the help of the charter staff soldiers trolled the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea for salmon and halibut.

"It's crazy that they would do that (for us) for free," said Smith, a 33-year-old Rockford, Ill., native who's been in the military for 14 years. "I learned a lot of different fishing techniques and skills I didn't have."

Smith hooked a 20-pound salmon, 30-pound lingcod and even saw another fisherman hook a string ray, which was immediately thrown back.

The trip also gave the soldiers a chance to sample various cuisine native to Alaska - in addition to their catches - such as moose burgers and reindeer sausage.

"The food they cooked us was first-class," Gleim said.