HANSCOM AFB, Ma – A team from the 182nd Engineer Company (Sappers), 101st Engineer Battalion, consisting of Staff Sgt. Kyle Flaherty and Sgt. Zachary Gray competed at the 18th Annual Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers Best Sapper Competition, April 25-29, 2025, at Fort Leonard Wood, MO.
The team finished sixth out of 35 teams and was the top National Guard team at the competition.
“Unbelievable performance!” said Lt. Col. Russell Oneil, Commander of the 101st Engineer Battalion. “That was the best team of any team placement from the Mass Guard. It is likely the best performance by any Reserve component team in the 18 years of the competition’s history. The majority of the competitors were from the active component, but SSG Flaherty and SGT Gray outperformed them despite the fact that they don't do this for a full-time profession.”
The team surpassed their own expectations, going in wanting to win, but understanding they had some disadvantages.
“We honestly placed way above expectations,” said Gray. “When you go to a competition, you have an expectation to try to win, but then a little bit of the realism of like how much time we actually had to train to do it.”
Although training time and resources may not have been on their side, the team still prepared as much as possible.
With their eyes set on Best Sapper, the team competed in and won the First Army East Sapper competition in November. That allowed them to compete at Army Best Sapper and secure some additional training opportunities.
For Gray, the seeds of Best Sapper were planted at basic training.
“I remember when I was at Basic Training, they had a Best Sapper and kind of shut down the whole base. I just thought if I ever get tabbed (completing Sapper school), that's something I want,” said Gray.
The team trained individually in the months leading up to Best Sapper, conducting a lot of physical fitness training and refining their sapper skills. It wasn’t until the last few weeks that the partners were able to train together consistently.
“We had about three weeks prior to the competition to really sit down and train together,” said Gray. “A lot of it was some sort of workout in the morning, either like a CrossFit style workout or rucking or running, and then we'd hit all the technical stuff during the day, and then we'd either ruck or do a CrossFit workout to end the day. And that was pretty much every day for the three weeks leading up to the comp,” he added.
All the physical training paid off and proved that Guardsmen can compete with their active duty counterparts.
“It demonstrates our skill, endurance, competence, lethality, and grit. We are just as skilled in our Engineer Tasks as compo 1 and 3, and in many cases, we bring a whole set of experience from outside the military,” said Oneil. “Our Soldiers have the physical and mental endurance to compete with the best. Our competence exceeds many active duty units as we are able to maintain doctrinal proficiency and improvise based on a wider range of civilian skill sets. Lethality is what we strive to maintain and build upon. This competition demonstrates just how lethal we are in any environment. Throughout the three and a half day competition, all the competitors demonstrated their grit. Time and time again, they had nothing left in the tank, and they found a way to fight on. That’s Grit,” he added.
Grit would come into play on day one of the competition, which started with an obstacle course and ended with an X-mile ruck, a ruck with an unknown distance.
“The x-mile ruck they had was probably the most physically and mentally demanding event,” said Gray. “Just because it started at around 8 at night and they were just like ruck and it went dark and you didn't know how far you were going.”
The distance was never disclosed to competitors, but Gray estimates it was between 14 and 15 miles.
The next few days consisted of more physical challenges and technical exercises, which brought new challenges and experiences for competitors.
The non-standard fitness test was a highlight for Gray. Competitors rappelled out of a Chinook to start the event and went through a series of fitness tests in front of a large crowd.
“There was a ton of spectators, so it was just really motivating having this crowd around you while you worked out these crazy non-standard physical fitness events,” said Gray.
From there, teams took on the shooting range and technical test, all with an element of stress and fitness.
“They had us do some expedient demolitions, but with some new demo (explosive charges) that haven't been issued out to the army yet. So it's all in its preliminary research and development phases. So we got to play with a lot of that stuff,” said Gray.
The team had support from leadership and Soldiers from the 101st Engineer Battalion and the Massachusetts National Guard.
“Support back home was probably the biggest driver for us. We had people from Brigadier General Kalin(Land Component Commander, Massachusetts National Guard) all the way down to privates in my team who are sending me texts or calling me or commenting on all the posts on Facebook, following the competition,” said Gray. “Having that support was unreal, coming back and being able to talk to everybody and having them ask you the questions and be able to gauge their interest and get them more interested in stuff in the 12 Bravo field. I think it was just awesome,” he added.
Gray is excited for next year, hoping to go back and place even better, but he also hopes more Mass Guard Soldiers take on the challenge of competition.
“I would say for any soldier, it's great. I think it’s super important, and it also gives you a really good baseline for yourself as an individual or as a team to boost that morale a little bit. I'm motivated I know from my company I've motivated a ton of dudes to either go to our pre sapper leader course or try to attend sapper school or or if they're already tabbed they want to do this comp now too because they've seen it they've seen it can be done and I think it's just shows you can do this stuff in the Guard with some work...All you've got to do is put in the time for it,” he added.
In addition to placing well at Best Sapper, Staff Sgt. Flaherty recently welcomed a child into his family.
| Date Taken: | 05.28.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.28.2025 12:12 |
| Story ID: | 499070 |
| Location: | MASSACHUSETTS, US |
| Web Views: | 28 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Into the Breach: Mass Guard engineers excel at best sapper, by SFC Steven Eaton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
