Photo By Bernhard Lashleyleidner | Sgt. Mark Maldonado, small arms artillery repairer, 101st BSB, 1st ABCT, performed...... read more read more
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CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait – Spc. Jonathan Hunter, information technology specialist, 518th Tactical Installation Networking Company, 40th Expeditionary Signal Battalion, 35th Signal Brigade, won the Buehring’s Got Talent competition Sept. 5 at the Oasis Morale, Welfare and Recreation stage area.
The competition was cosponsored by the 101st Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division and the USO.
Hunter seemed to impress the judges and crowd with his break-dancing performance and his stage presence, beating out the band, “Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta,” which is made of 101st BSB Soldiers.
“The reason we chose the dancer over the band came down to stage presence and crowd participation,” said Sgt. Maj. Roosevelt Whetstone, operations senior noncommissioned officer, 4th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 1st ABCT. “It takes a lot of talent and coordination to sing and play a musical instrument, so I gave the band extra points for that.”
Chap. (Capt.) Aprill Bright, 101st BSB, said the competition was set up with the brigade’s ready and resilient focus with the purpose of giving Soldiers a creative way of demonstrating their competitiveness, while relaxing and having fun.
“The basewide talent contest was designed to showcase the skills and abilities of the troops, boost morale and feature two local opening acts from Kuwait City,” said Tiffany Banks, USO manager, Camp Buehring.
More than 40 Soldiers, Airmen, Marines and civilians auditioned
for the show several weeks ago. Twenty-two contestants made it to the final round of the competition.
A panel of five judges – Sgt. Maj. Roosevelt Whetstone, Capt. Susana Guerrero, Sgt. 1st Class Clark, Staff Sgt. Mark Korte and Anderson Ayers III – could award a maximum of five points in overall performance, originality, creativity and the audience reaction, with the highest combined score winning the event.
Unlike the TV show, judges and contestants did not interact prior to their performances, and there were two masters of ceremonies, versus one.
Contestants competed in the performance categories of dancing and singing. Many Soldiers chose to sing over pre-recorded music, some played musical instruments and others sang a cappella.
The show began with performances by Arabique, a Kuwaiti hip-hop artist, and Zanjebar, a Kuwaiti rock band, that got the crowd excited prior to the competition.
As contestant after contestant came to the stage to perform, they gave shout outs to their families back home and to their units represented in the crowd, which was overwhelmingly made up of 101st BSB Soldiers.
Spc. Robert Johnson II, human resources specialist, Headquarters
and Headquarters Troop, 4th Sqdn., 4th Cav. Regt., and Sgt. 1st Class David Wesson, platoon sergeant, Company B, 101st BSB, provided comic relief and kept the crowd entertained between performances.
During three intermissions, Johnson and Wesson asked for audience participation in events like an egg-smashing contest. Two competitors had to smash eggs against their foreheads, with the first person to smash three cooked eggs instead of raw eggs winning a $25 gift card.
There was also an audience dance off, where five random members of the crowd danced for one minute for the chance to win a pair of Beats by Dre headphones.
During the final intermission, the crowd played an old favorite – musical chairs – with the winner receiving an iPad.
A highlight of the evening came when panel judge Sgt. 1st Class Kimberly Cook, senior noncommissioned officer, Quick Reaction Force, 101st BSB, left the judges table to sing a moving rendition of Natalie Cole’s “Inseparable.”
Another came when Staff Sgt. Justin Borders, ground support equipment noncommissioned officer in charge, 101st BSB, sang “Stuck on You” by Lionel Richie. Borders pumped the crowd up with his “fire it up chants” and his unwillingness to leave the stage after completing
his song.
“The talent show was a huge success because the Chaplain Corps and USO came together with the focus of boosting the morale of the troops here at Camp Buehring,” Wesson said.
“We wanted to give the service members something exciting to look forward to that would embody esprit de corps.”
Wesson said the event surpassed their expectations.
“As a band, there is nothing as exciting as performing for a crowd,” said 1st Lt. Lee Wakeman, evacuation platoon leader, 101st BSB.
Wakeman said the opportunity to share one’s passion with others was incredible and the band members hoped to continue performing for the troops throughout the deployment.
Bright said the brigade chaplain’s office and USO plan on hosting more events likethese as the holidays approach.
| Date Taken: | 09.18.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 09.19.2014 01:52 |
| Story ID: | 142657 |
| Location: | CAMP BUEHRING, KW |
| Web Views: | 163 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Deployed ‘Devil’ Soldiers display talents, by Bernhard Lashleyleidner, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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