Photo By Sgt. 1st Class James McGuire | Wyoming Army National Guard Sgt. Joseph Whitley ensures Spc.Tyler Nieters’ uniform...... read more read more
CAMP GUERNSEY, Wyo. - Far outnumbering the 15 soldiers and non-commissioned officers from eight western states participating in the 2015 Region 6 Best Warrior Competition was the number of Wyoming Army National Guard soldiers facilitating the events, ranges and training lanes.
Soldiers from all commands and throughout the state were on hand in Cheyenne and Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center, May 11-14 to run weapons ranges, conduct the fitness test, lead marches and deploy surprise attacks that produced mock casualties to be treated.
From uniform inspections and supplies and ammunition issue to medical attention and safety officers, Wyoming guardsman brought their best to the competition.
That effort did not go unnoticed by State Command Sgt. Maj. Tom Allan, and other sergeants major from the region.
“I’m extremely proud of the people in Wyoming. Some of the bigger states with more money and more personnel can plan almost all year,” Allan said. “We pull this together with minimum resources. I’m always amazed by the resiliency of Wyoming soldiers. I’m hearing from my peers, this is as good as they’ve seen.”
The competitors, some of whom have been at this level of competition, agreed.
“The whole thing was really well laid out and consistently flowed from start to finish,” said Sgt. Matthew Croft of the Washington Army National Guard’s B Troop 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry Regiment. “They kept us really busy and kept us on our toes. Nothing ever backed up on us, and there wasn’t much sitting around at all.”
Sgt. Eli Lilley, of the Wyoming Army National Guard’s 115th Field Artillery Brigade was Wyoming Soldier of the Year in 2008 and moved on to the Region 6 at Helena Montana, and competed at All-Guard. He compared the two competitions.
“It was actually pretty comparable, big difference being we didn’t have a 12-mile ruck march in that one,” Lilley said. “Both were basically the same pace though — high.”
While cleaning his rifle and getting his feet checked by medics, on the night before the 12-mile culminating event, and after a third day full of grueling challenges that started on the obstacle course and moved on to various shooting competitions and long marches through the hills of Camp Guernsey JTC, Lilley said he was impressed with the Wyoming effort.
“I am completely worn out right now, and we’re not even done yet, so I’d give them a high score for keeping us on our toes. I think we’re all tired, but nobody wants to say exactly how tired we are. There might be a handful that would actually say, but it’s a good indicator that it’s a good competition. At national, they would have a training event right before a graded event. Here we had a few training events, but mostly graded competition and that’s good because this is a competition.”
Sgt. Gerardo Lopez of the Alaska Army National Guard’s A Company, 49th Missile Defense Battalion learned a few things when he represented Alaska at the Region 6 in Oregon as a specialist in 2013.
“I learned you should never underestimate any of your competitors,” he said. “You may have the quietest guy or the loudest guy, but you don’t know until they come out on top.”
“I don’t think anyone is here because they were voluntold to be here. That’s what makes these competitions hard. Not the events, necessarily, but that we all want to be here, and we want to win,” he explained. “Wyoming has set up a good competition for all of us. They’ve made it difficult both mentally and physically, which is what you should expect and what you should want in order for your regional winners to represent well at nationals. We should be well set up for competing at nationals and all Army.”
That is exactly what Allan and his fellow planners had in mind when rolling out the welcome mat in Wyoming.
“We key off what active Army is going to do. We fully believe that someone from Region 6 is going to make it all the way. Our sole goal is to make this competition harder than anything they’re going to see down the line. Here in region 6, we’re from the mountain area … we push our people a little harder. Just a few years ago, a Montana Guardsman went all the way and won All Army. We place at All Guard often, and we’ve had one more go to All Army since winning.”
Spc. Tyler Nieters, from Cody, and the 133rd Engineer Company didn’t know exactly what to expect, but he knew it would be harder than anything he’d done before. While working, going to school, training for, and during the competition, he gladly accepted lessons and coaching.
Sgt. Michael Whitley competed last year and his twin brother, Joseph, was Nieters’ sponsor, helping coach the Wyoming Soldier of the Year. The sponsors, much like a pro golfer’s caddy, are at the side of the competitors throughout the event.
“Sgt. Whitley [Joseph] helped me out a lot with studying and getting ready,” Nieters said of his coach. “Michael helped me a lot with what to expect, and he gave Sgt. [Joseph] Whitley here a lot of advice to help me through it.”
“By the time you get to this level, everybody’s here to win,” said Croft, a traditional guardsman. “Everyone spends months training for the academic stuff and training for the physical stuff, training for the soldier tasks. It’s an experience like no other we have in our training environment.”
“We’re in the whole warrior concept,” Allan concluded. “We want to know how intelligent they are. We want to know how they do under pressure. We want to know how they will react with the lack of sleep and of course, the physical goes without saying with the Army. This isn’t just fun to win a prize. This is what war is like. These are best warriors.”
| Date Taken: | 07.06.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.06.2015 18:25 |
| Story ID: | 169196 |
| Location: | CAMP GUERNSEY, WY, US |
| Web Views: | 56 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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