{"id":169,"date":"2016-03-13T02:35:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-13T02:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/?p=169"},"modified":"2017-09-05T15:30:45","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T15:30:45","slug":"maryland-announces-its-best-warriors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/2016\/03\/13\/maryland-announces-its-best-warriors\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryland Announces its Best Warriors"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Spc. Brianna Kearney, 29th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment\u2014<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The points are counted and Maryland\u2019s Best Warriors are Spc. Christopher Hoffman, Staff Sgt. Andrew Cullum, and Capt. Alexi Franklin in the soldier, noncommissioned officer, and officer in their respective categories. Hoffman and Cullum will continue on to the Regional Best Warrior Competition and face off against other National Guard states.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just joined the Army a few years ago, but this is my second time winning the state competition and it\u2019s an absolutely great feeling,\u201d said Hoffman, member of C Co., 1st General Support Aviation Battalion, 169th Aviation Regiment. \u201cAll that hard work pays off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seventeen soldiers set out to compete in Maryland\u2019s Best Warrior Competition which started and ended on the Edgewood area of Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., from March 10-13, 2016. The awards ceremony for the competition took place after the graduation ceremony for Maryland\u2019s newest soldiers from the Recruit Sustainment Program. The soldiers are separated into different phases depending on their military training status. The graduating soldiers were apart of \u201cGold Phase\u201d meaning that they are ready to transition into their units.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Capt.

Capt. Alexi Franklin, 32nd Civil Support Team<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The competition consisted of seven events including a written test of military knowledge, an Army Physical Fitness Test, warrior tasks, day\/night land navigation, weapons qualification, a seven-mile ruck march and a board. The competition allows soldiers, noncommissioned officers, officers\/warrant officers and military members from Maryland\u2019s State Partnership Program to showcase their basic soldier skills and be the best of the best.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe competition helps build esprit de corps,\u201d said Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Beyard, the senior enlisted leader for the Maryland National Guard. \u201cWe started with soldiers and noncommissioned officers. Now we\u2019re including officers because it\u2019s very important that these different ranks and all the people from our organization learn to work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyard elaborated that officers have been eligible to compete in Maryland\u2019s Best Warrior Competition since last year. He mentioned that the adjutant general believed that this competition was the best place to build a stronger command team relationship between enlisted members and officers.<\/p>\n

\"Staff

Staff Sgt. Andrew Cullum, Recruiting Retention Battalion<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

This was the first year that Bosnia and Herzegovina, a member of Maryland\u2019s State Partnership Program, was able to compete in the competition. The Maryland National Guard invited two teams from the BiH military to compete. MDNG soldiers traveled to BiH to prep them. Competing in the Best Warrior allows them to learn, train, and teach skills that they could bring back to their soldiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were tremendous competitors and they did extremely well,\u201d Bayard said. \u201cWe hope next year to have an Estonian team, so we can have all of our state partners involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maryland plays a key role in the international initiative to foster democracy, encourage market economies and promote regional cooperation and stability through the State Partnership Program.<\/p>\n

The Bosnian participants received mentorship from their senior enlisted and officers. Each of the Maryland National Guard competitors received a sponsor who was there to support their actions in the competition. These sponsors helped their competitors train for the physical events and practice for the military board that each participant would face.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about morale because a lot of times the competitors will get to a certain point and they\u2019ll feel like they can\u2019t do this, but that mentor is there to help pick them up and say, \u2018take it one task at a time and you\u2019ll succeed\u2019,\u201d said Staff Sgt. Delvon Anderson, the sponsor of Hoffman and Sgt. Stephen Rzemyk.<\/p>\n

\"Spc.

Spc. Christopher Hoffman, C Co., 1st General Support Aviation Battalion, 169th Aviation Regiment<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

In 2011, Anderson competed and won Best Warrior in the soldier competition. He went to the regional Best Warrior Competition and placed 3rd as a specialist. In 2013, he competed and won as the noncommissioned officer competition as a sergeant. He went to the regional Best Warrior Competition and placed 2nd. Anderson\u2019s experiences allowed him to better prepare his soldiers and showcase the importance of being a mentor in the competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as my past competitions, that made me the first awardee in Maryland history to win the soldier of the year and noncommissioned officer of the year competition,\u201d added Anderson. \u201cThat\u2019s mainly due to Command Sgt. Maj. Bayard mentoring me and noticing my potential. So, because of his motivation to push me, I was able to get that recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also in the audience to view the ceremony were Freestate ChalleNGe cadets. These cadets are at-risk youth who want a second chance. The cadets are in the 22-week residency phase of the Freestate ChalleNGe Academy. When they graduate from their residency phase, the cadets are mentored for 12 months and put into jobs, continue their education, or enter military service.<\/p>\n

This week, the Maryland National Guard winners will be recognized in the State House on the Senate floor during session.<\/p>\n

\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7y7LfnDiq5o <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Spc. Brianna Kearney, 29th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment\u2014 The points are counted and Maryland\u2019s Best Warriors are Spc. Christopher Hoffman, Staff Sgt. Andrew Cullum, and Capt. Alexi Franklin in the soldier, noncommissioned officer, and officer in their respective categories. Hoffman and Cullum will continue on to the Regional Best Warrior Competition and face off  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,810],"tags":[98,120,390,94,291,393,89,391,392,155],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-state-partnership-program","tag-1-169th-general-support-aviation-battalion","tag-169th-aviation-regiment","tag-1st-general-support-aviation-battalion","tag-32nd-civil-support-team","tag-aberdeen-proving-ground","tag-freestate-challenge","tag-gunpowder-military-reservation","tag-marylands-best-warrior-competition","tag-marylands-state-partnership-program","tag-recruit-sustainment-program"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}