Courtesy Photo | Team leader and Woodbury, Minn., native, Staff Sgt. Josh Tobin, and his team of...... read more read more
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FORT HOOD, Texas – In every career field, some individuals rise to the top and come to represent the pinnacle of success in that arena.
Physicists have Albert Einstein. Chefs have James Beard. And journalists have the likes of Ernie Pyle and Maj. Gen. Keith L. Ware.
Cavalry scouts are no exception. The consummate cavalry scout is exemplified in the person of Command Sgt. Maj. William “Joe” Gainey, and the consummate cav scout squad is exemplified in the competition that bears his name.
Six of Greywolf’s own troopers from 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division competed for the coveted honor at Fort Benning, Georgia, May 4 through 8.
Currently, 3-8 Cav is on a rotational deployment to South Korea and is attached to the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. As such, the team flew from Korea to Fort Benning to prove themselves in competition.
“We competed at the division level for the opportunity to represent 2ID,” said Staff Sgt. John Powell, the team’s squad leader. “After we won that competition, we got to train for about another month to continue to prepare, and then we were sent down here (to Fort Benning) to acclimatize for about a week in advance, and now we’re getting ready to go into the competition.”
According to the competition website, “The best scout squad of the United States Army must be adaptable, survivable, lethal, and competent in the fundamentals of reconnaissance and security.”
A brief read-through of the events and challenges the competitors face revealed how intense and physically demanding this contest promised to be.
In fact, if Powell could describe it in one word, he said, “Difficult.”
“A tough three days,” said the Georgetown, Texas, native. “I expect it to be very physically demanding. I know they’re not planning on giving us a lot of rest, but my guys are in very high spirits … I haven’t met anybody from another team yet that wasn’t impressive. They are all impressive, so this is going to be a great competition with some really great competitors. It’ll be a lot of fun.”
Before it all began, Powell had a pretty clear idea what would be his most challenging event.
“Hardest physically will most assuredly be the final charge,” he said. “Based on what they did two years ago, that’s going to be very physically demanding.”
The final charge was the culminating event of the competition, where teams ran 1.78 miles to complete several obstacles using logs, light medium tactical vehicle tires, and .50 caliber machine guns with tripods.
This relatively young competition — the inaugural Gainey Cup was held in 2013 — has come to mean a lot to these scouts.
“There is no higher level of competition in the scout world, so winning this is one of the biggest honors you can get as a scout,” Powell said. “There’s only been two of them, so if you win, there’s only 12 people at that point in the Army who can say they ever won one. I just hope to do as well as I can, because my guys have worked really hard to get here, and I know that it’s a big deal to them, and I want to give them the opportunity to see what it’s like to compete at the highest level and win.”
With apprehension, nerves and anxiety brewing, the games began.
The opening ceremony rolled seamlessly into the start of competition with the recon run as the first event. The squads ran up to four miles in Army Combat Uniforms, Fighting Load Carriers and patrol caps with their assigned weapons, after which they took a 10-question exam that tested their observation and memory skills.
“Really from the get-go it was pretty tiring, even though we were well prepared physically and mentally,” said Pfc. Andrew Wiedrick, the team’s grenadier and a native of Atlanta. “But the activities and the events were pretty hard to do.”
Those events included area and route reconnaissance situational training exercises, security operations and medical skills lanes, written exams, an obstacle course, a vehicle identification test, and day and night land navigation.
“The land navigation, by far, was the hardest part,” Powell said. “Navigating itself wasn’t difficult. It was extremely difficult terrain with some of the longest distances we had between points. We had our first point at about (a little more than 2 miles) straight-line distance, so by the time we were able to plot a route around the swamps, we were up to about (2.5 to 2.75 miles) of night maneuvering with around 55 to 60-pound rucks. Brutal.”
The team prepared and studied extensively to compete in this competition, but one oversight cost them points.
“On the vehicle ID lane, we had a study guide that came out when the first ‘Message to the Force’ came out, and that’s what we studied,” Powell said. “The weekend before the competition, they updated the study guide with about 20 new vehicles, and we didn’t see that change, so there were about 20 vehicles on the vehicle ID test that we hadn’t studied - hadn’t even heard of.”
As the leader, Powell took every win as a victory and every setback as a learning experience.
“There were some small mistakes made at most of (the lanes),” he said. “What I’m most happy about is we won the route reconnaissance lane, and that’s a big part of being a scout, so winning that lane meant a lot to me. We won the medical lane, and as a platoon sergeant, of course, my ability to perform CASEVAC is a big deal to me. And those two things were big pluses, but you just can’t win them all. The competition out here was really stiff, and every small mistake counted.”
As the competitors from all 19 teams maneuvered through, up, over and around the obstacles and tasks ahead of them, the heat beat down on them, and exhaustion set in. When their bodies practically begged them to slow down, to stop, to give up, they each sought the drive and motivation to keep pushing.
“To be completely honest, I’ve got three Soldiers down here with me, junior enlisted and a young corporal, and those guys have worked their tails off to get here,” Powell said. “They studied a ridiculous amount of information, committed a bunch of stuff to memory that nobody else is required to store in their memory banks. I mean, it’s an egregious amount of stuff they had to learn, so anytime I found myself where you hit the wall or you want to slow down, I just didn’t want to let the young Soldiers down. I didn’t want them to suffer, because I wasn’t performing, so I just kept pushing, and I know for them they kept pushing, because they worked hard to get here, and they really wanted to win. They were hungry to win.”
That hunger paid off for three teams in this competition.
“I just kept telling myself, ‘This is the last event. This is the last event. We’re going to get through. We’re going to try and win this for me and my teammates,’” Wiedrick said.
After all that it took to make it to the Gainey Cup, first place went to the 25th Infantry Division, second place to the 82nd Airborne Division, and third place to the 3rd Infantry Division.
The six troopers from 3-8 Cav came in fourth place, but they were pleased with their performance nonetheless.
“I feel good about everything that happened,” Wiedrick said. “It was fun, tiring, but fun, and was really good training.”
Win or lose, they went out and competed with grace and dignity, he said.
“We were really happy, really proud to represent 2ID as a rotational unit with those guys, but of course, as always, we are first and foremost 3-8 Cav, and we’re always proud to have the opportunity to go out and represent 3-8 in a positive light,” Powell said. It’s a great battalion and a great brigade, and we’re always happy to go out and do our best and let others know what a phenomenal unit we’re part of.”
The members of the 3-8 Cav team were: Staff Sgt. John Powell, squad leader from Georgetown, Texas; Staff Sgt. Josh Tobin, team leader from Woodbury, Minnesota; Cpl. Dylan Swanty, M240B gunner from Show Low, Arizona; Spc. Joshua Althouse, senior scout observer from Richland, Pennsylvania; Pfc. Andrew Wiedrick, grenadier from Atlanta; and Pfc. Kyle Norlander, primary combat lifesaver from Duluth, Minnesota.
| Date Taken: | 05.13.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 05.13.2015 11:55 |
| Story ID: | 163151 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TX, US |
| Hometown: | ATLANTA, GA, US |
| Hometown: | DULUTH, MN, US |
| Hometown: | GEORGETOWN, TX, US |
| Hometown: | RICHLAND, PA, US |
| Hometown: | SHOW LOW, AZ, US |
| Hometown: | WOODBURY, MN, US |
| Web Views: | 198 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Greywolf competes for best scout team, by SFC Leah Kilpatrick, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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