Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: United States Army

WIESBADEN, Germany— What began as a test of individual physical, mental, and tactical excellence ended as something more during the 2026 Installation Management Command-Europe Best Warrior Competition.

Over five days, 13 Soldiers and noncommissioned officers across IMCOM-Europe’s garrisons were pushed through a series of demanding events designed to test their technical and tactical proficiency, physical fitness and resiliency while enhancing expertise, training, professionalism and esprit de corps.

But beyond the grueling schedule of ranges, ruck marches, and warrior tasks; competitors found themselves building something unexpected, a team.

“The camaraderie that is built when you see a Soldier from USAG Italy having a conversation as if they’ve been best friend with another Soldier from USAG Poland they just met a couple of days ago,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Christopher Carbone, IMCOM-Europe’s senior enlisted advisor.

Staff Sgt. Timothy Maynard, U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria’s noncommissioned officer competitor said the strength of the field drove him to perform at a higher level.

“The strength of the other competitors definitely pushed me further than I would have gone if it were just me,” said the Mims, Florida, native. “They [all] were just very talented Soldiers and pushed me to better myself.”

A shift in mindset became more apparent as the competition progressed.

“After the first two days, the guard started to go down amongst the competitors,” said Master Sgt. Isaiah Mott, IMCOM-E’s senior religious affairs noncommissioned officer. “They realized it’s okay for them to work together… they were ultimately a team.”

Spc. Josiah Edness, U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart’s junior enlisted competitor, said the experience reinforced a broader mindset.

“Although this may be a competition, we’re still all fighting together at the end of the day,” said the Sumter, South Carolina native.

The shift was exactly what the competition was designed to produce.

“Competitions are designed to test a Soldier’s grit and resiliency, which help build the warfighter spirit,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Buteau, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the competition.

Buteau said the event also reinforces core Soldier skills across a diverse garrison force.

“It is important we come together to remember that we are more than desk sergeants or religious support professionals, we are Soldiers, first and always,” he said.

The pace and conditions forced competitors to apply skills under pressure, mirroring the uncertainty they may face in real-world operations.

“You don’t want to learn a new skill for the very first time in combat,” Carbone said. “This is an event that’s teaching them those skills … under conditions that may not be favorable to them.”

“Just a few days ago, you stood as individuals … from different garrisons who were practically strangers,” Carbone said during the closing ceremony. “Now look at you. You’re a single bonded unit.”

The week culminated in the selection of IMCOM-Europe’s top performers, recognizing the Warriors who rose above the demanding and fast-paced competition.

Staff Sgt. Timothy Maynard, representing USAG Bavaria, was named the 2026 IMCOM-Europe Best Warrior Noncommissioned Officer. Spc. Josiah Edness, representing USAG Stuttgart, was named the 2026 IMCOM-Europe Best Warrior Soldier.

In addition, three competitors – Spc. Valeria Martinez, Sgt. Matthew Liao, and Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin Henning, earned the German Armed Forces Badge for Weapon Proficiency, known as the Schützenschnur, through a partnership with the Bundeswher.

The two best warriors will advance to represent IMCOM-Europe at the next level of competition as part of the Army Materiel Command Best Squad Competition.

Source: United States Army

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska — Soldiers from the Alaska Army National Guard’s Avalanche Company, 1st Battalion, 297th Infantry Regiment, honed their lethality and live-fire skills March 20-22 during the unit’s annual training.

Capt. Andrew Viray, Avalanche Company commander, maneuvered the company through the Infantry Platoon Battle Course, IPBC, one squad at a time. The company, used to dealing with avalanches in Alaska’s mountains, wore snowshoes to stay aloft and overwhite pants to conceal their movement along the blanketed boreal floor. Squads infiltrated through thick forest on their way to successive assaults upon groups of pop-up targets defending a frozen complex of berms.

Viray said the exercise was the culmination of months of foundational training, including individual movement techniques, marksmanship and team and squad infantry battle drills.

“The purpose of the squad live fire is to train and evaluate a squad’s ability to effectively fight, move and communicate under realistic combat conditions using live ammunition and ensure confidence in our leaders that they can control their squads and teams, and that we can keep building our lethality,” Viray said.

The IPBC is part of the U.S. military’s vast portfolio of range complexes and capabilities designed to offer troops unparalleled realism and instrumented data collection to hone formations to a fine edge, capabilities not afforded to adversaries.

Squads rehearsed the attack lane with dry and blank-fire iterations to get a sense of the mission and to work out kinks in their final execution. Locking and loading live ammunition, the units marched through the wood line and set up an objective rally point that the squad leader then temporarily left behind to recon the objective.

Coming back to rally their unit, the leader tactically marched the squad toward a position overlooking the objective with good fields of fire, leaving a support-by-fire, or SBF, element to concentrate fire on enemy targets to keep their heads down.

The squad leader then took the remainder of the element to flank the objective, signaling the SBF element to shift fires off the objective before lifting fires entirely as the assault element plowed through enemy positions.

There is no margin for error when it comes to safety, and there is a marked difference between marginally achieving the mission and aggressively assaulting the bunker line with overwhelming speed and violence of action.

Though other squads employed an assault element and an SBF element, the Soldiers of the weapons squad from both 1st and 2nd Platoon composed a dedicated support by fire using their M-240L 7.62mm machine guns.

The M-240L is a lighter version of the legacy M-240G, used by combat support units, shedding 5 pounds through a collapsible stock, a 4-inch-shorter barrel, a titanium receiver and a polymer trigger frame, resulting in a more agile and lethal gun.

Weapons squad leader Staff Sgt. Brendan White used a “talking guns” dialogue to ensure optimum suppression while preventing the guns from prematurely exhausting ammunition and overheating the barrels.

“The goal and purpose of talking guns is to make it seem like only one machine gun is in the position to mask our numbers,” White explained. “So, we have rates of fire that we choose, and each gun fires in sequence to mask our numbers.”

Viray said the weekend’s work was indicative of the company’s fighting spirit.

“Carrying through the objective, reaching the limit of advance, everybody fights in the Avalanche Company,” Viray said before invoking Avalanche Company’s motto: “Bury them.”