CAMP ASHLAND, Neb. -- Ready, set, compete…
Eighteen Nebraska Army National Guard Soldiers and four Czech Republic Soldiers competed in the annual Best Warrior Competition April 14 – April 17 at Greenlief Training Site and Camp Ashland, Ne.
The competition began, April 14, at the twenty-first hour.
Soldiers stepped off the maroon-colored bus, into the moonlit night, with their black and yellow physical fitness uniform on. They were ready for the first event – the Army Combat Fitness Test.
The physical fitness test was more of a welcome to the competition and the only full night of sleep the contestants would receive, said Staff Sgt. Brenden Zegers, a wheeled vehicle mechanic with 1-209th Regiment (Regional Training Institute).
Day One
A restful night led to a busy day on the range at Greenlief Training site where a cool breeze met the competitors. Soon shots began ringing through the air leaving the surrounding areas smelling like 4th of July fireworks.
The day’s competition was designed to test the Soldiers’ marksmanship skills as they engaged numerous targets in different scenarios. These engagements included walking the length of the Known Distance range, shooting at the pistol range, competing in four matches (Anti-Body Armor Match, Close-Quarters Battle Match, M-240B Field Fire Match and the Reflexive Fire Match), and performing a mystery event with the Texas Star. The range day finished with the M-4 individual weapons qualification range.
“My favorite event was Day One on the ranges,” Sgt. Matthew Reese a welder assigned to the 128th Engineer Battalion. “It was reminiscent of the Governor’s Shoot we did this year. I still had leftover knowledge from the shoot, and it is always nice to keep my skills polished. Besides, it is one of our basic Soldiering tasks.”
After the long day on the ranges, the competitors still needed to clean their weapons before heading to their quarters to pack up and head to Camp Ashland for the next day’s events.
Day Two
The next morning, with minimal sleep, the competitors traveled to Mead Training Site with their red headlamps, weapons, and the rest of their gear to conduct land navigation.
Zegers said he believed the lack of rest was strategic to add a little more pressure on the Soldiers to assess their resiliency and mental agility.
Soldiers walked through the tall blades of grass with just a spot of red light from their lamps and their map to guide them to their distant plotted points. Finally, as the sun began to rise above the terrain, one-by-one the competitors made their way to the end point. After having their work checked, the Soldiers sat down briefly for a quick breakfast before heading to the obstacle course.
“The most challenging event for me? The obstacle course,” said Zegers. “I admittedly underestimated that event, and I got humbled very quickly.”
For the first obstacle, the Soldiers were required to climb a rope, travel across spatially placed beams, climb two more feet in the air only to descend back to the ground on a vertical net. They then made their way to Jacob’s Ladder, a vertical ladder more than ten-feet tall with the greater distance in the steps the higher the ladder gets.
These obstacles were mandatory for the Soldiers to complete to continue the course. The less time it took to complete the obstacle course the more points awarded. Also, the Soldiers could skip one of the other seven obstacles, however, it meant they had to follow through with the rest.
Camouflage clothed competitors moved swiftly (climbing, descending, jumping, flipping, high-stepping, low-crawling, sliding, swinging and landing), on ropes, over beams and under beams, in the dirt, under constantino wire, over barriers and to the last obstacle which they stood with their hands in the air for 10-seconds before dismounting and stopping the clock.
They had six minutes to complete to get the maximum number of points.
On the other side of the gate was a tall tower where rappel experts waited for the Soldiers. There the competitors found two rows of gloves and ropes laid out on the grass, one side for the non-commissioned officers (NCOs), the other for the enlisted Soldiers.
Once the NCOs and enlisted Soldiers split into their respective sides, instructors demonstrated how to securely create a knotted harness, to wear and attach to a rappel rope as they exited the tower. This event gauged the competitor’s knots and security of their harness, and their technique while rappelling down the tower. Simple yet critical things, like announcing their brake hand upon entering the top of the tower, their body position before rappelling, looking over the correct shoulder, communicating with the person holding the bottom of their rope, and hand positioning while they descend were all evaluated and scored by the team of experts.
Reese said the next events, the Expert Infantry Badge, and the Expert Soldier Badge lanes, helped him understand where his shortcomings were and how he can adapt to become a better Soldier. After completing the EIB and ESB lanes, the competitors moved down a small hill into the React to Contact lane.
Here, competitors walked through the shrubs when, out of nowhere a green or yellow smoke bomb would explode to signal an initial attack. Suddenly, someone planted deep in a nearby tree line would begin to shoot.
In this moment, the competitors were graded on their reactions, to include returning fire, finding a safe low position and then low crawling to a barrier for cover in the specified area. The instant the protected area was reached, the Soldiers were expected to return fire again and throw two grenades into the vicinity of a marked off area.
The day’s events ended at 11 p.m. with the Night Stakes competitors where the Soldiers had to put weapons back together that had been disassembled and their parts stacked in a pile. While difficult in normal times, this task was complicated by the fact that the Soldiers had to reassemble the weapons in the dark.
Day Three
The days were becoming longer with more demanding mental and physical tasks with less sleep; however, the setbacks did not discourage the competitors.
“I wanna win… nothing less,” said Spc. Alexander Thomson, an infantry Soldier assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1-134th Infantry. “I know that sounds bad, but I am a competitor, and I am here with my guys. We are pushing each other to the limits and I have been giving everything that I have over the last week, so it would really mean a lot to me to win the Best Warrior.”
So, at 4:30 a.m., on the final day, all competitors were back on the maroon bus headed to MoPac Trail to beat the sunup to conduct a 12-mile ruck march. The time to beat was three hours.
Thomson said, “You are going to be tired; you are going to be hungry, but at the end of the day you must push forward.”
“Just never quit,” he added.
Competitors put on their rucksacks with red chem lights attached, lightweight equipment belts or improved outer tactical vests, a few of the competitor’s vests had motivational quotes stitched in, advanced combat helmet (ACH) and weapons. Their silhouettes resembled fireflies in a line, as they marched over the hill at the start of the trail head.
After about an hour, the first competitor crossed the 4-mile point, trudging under a bridge and into the alley way before disappearing into the darkness once again.
At the turn around point, the sun had finally joined the event, competitors staggered through the halfway point and took a moment to hydrate while others stayed long enough to hear their times and head back out. After two hours and 40 minutes the first competitor crossed over the finish line. With his weapon raised over his head, the Soldier fist bumped several others as he treaded down the hill, passing the timekeeper and on to the staging area to take off his gear.
About 10 minutes after the first competitor crossed the finish line there was another one and then one more. Slowly, the Soldiers began to slowly trickle in until the three hour mark. At this point, the remaining Soldiers were asked to stop at the 2-mile marker and wait until they were picked up.
The Soldiers were then taken back to Camp Ashland to start Tactical Combat Casualty Care.
Competitors proceeded two at a time outside the hangar on Camp Ashland where a pair of resuscitation dolls lay in the grass. When the participants exited the door, they were immediately awaited as if they were in a combat environment. They had to put down suppressive fire and then, once the environment was safe, moved to provide medical care to the “casualty” and then simulate requesting a medical evacuation to move the wounded person out of the environment.
The competition was finally coming to an exhausting end.
“The last couple of days have been challenging,” said Zegers. “Throughout the sleep deprivation you undergo tasks you may or may not have done before to see how well you perform under pressure. The 12-mile ruck march puts an extra mental and physical strain on your body to see who is going to show the most drive and determination. Medical lanes followed the events and then a board with three sergeant majors to apply the most pressure to see how well you can think and keep your composure.”
After the competitors finished their boards, they went to decompress before their award ceremony.
All the late nights, hunger pains, and physical challenges led them to this very minute, one NCO and one enlisted Soldier left Camp Ashland chosen to represent the Nebraska Army National Guard in the regional competition in Oklahoma in May.
While everyone did an outstanding job pushing their limits with each event. The first-place winners were Spc. Alexander Thomson, 2025 Soldier of the Year, and Sgt. Luke Entz, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-134th Infantry (Airborne), Noncommissioned Officer of the Year.
| Date Taken: | 04.23.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.25.2025 18:51 |
| Story ID: | 495954 |
| Location: | LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, US |
| Hometown: | LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, US |
| Web Views: | 24 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Nebraska and Czech Soldiers compete for top titles during annual Nebraska Army National, by SSG Courtney Davis, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
