Fort Riley hosted the 3rd Armored Corps Best Squad Competition this week, with final challenges wrapping up this morning.
The event brought together 12 squads of Third Armored Corps units from 4 states and competed in a series of challenges over the course of four days.
Command Sergeant Major Christian Panquerne said these soldiers have “been training for this competition for over a year, the same way you would imagine coaching a collegiate team for a big game that’s what they’ve been going through.”
Command Sergeant Major Niall (Neal) Cooper detailed some of the objectives Tuesday’s round of competition…
“The soldiers hit Urban Assault courses patrolling through open and wooded areas, crossing water features through poncho rafting, and then just overall speed of foot, how fast they can move. There’s also lot of leadership involved with a lot of different combat scenarios throughout the eight and a half miles.”
Each squad contains 3 soldiers, a team leader, and a squad leader.
Sergeant Aiden Meyer from Austin, Texas explained that squads started the 3rd day of competition with an obstacle course…
“We had a lot of foot marches and we’re moving through different areas, so we had some buildings that we had to clear as well as making like a water raft to where we swam out roughly 75 meters and back. Then we had a memory test, where we had certain signs that were up that were labeled, and we had to memorize those.”
Operations Sgt. Major of the 3rd Armored Corps Mike Sanchez said these operations are all based on previous competitions and aim to train these soldiers for the national event.
“We look at those future operations in our past competitions and we try to mirror the same thing so that all the respective teams that come to compete, they want to move forward to mirror the same thing. So that nothing’s a culture shock.”
All squads were graded and the winning squad will compete in the FORSCOM National Best Squad Competition later this year.
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