54 ARMY I July 2009 Photographs and Text By Dennis Steele Senior Staff Writer

lipped onto mountaineering ropes at the top of the cliff—a sheared-off slab of dolomite rock situated in the Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., training area and with a 90-degree, 90-foot drop to the creek bank below—each of the 34 two- teams compet- ing in this year’s Best Sapper Competition had a third partner for a few minutes—a 150-pound ca- sualty dummy called Rescue Randy that was strapped into an orange plastic Skedco litter folded around the victim like a sawed-off taco shell. The challenge was straightforward: Secure Randy in the Skedco correctly and get him down the precipice as quickly as possible after SSG Ray- mond Helvig said “Go!” and clicked a stopwatch. A cadre instructor from the Sapper Leader Course ( E, 554th Engineer Battalion, the Best Sapper Competition’s sponsoring unit), SSG Helvig nimbly patrolled the boxing ring-sized clearing at the top and served as judge, jury and chief executioner of the competition’s “Skedco/ Jumar assault lane.” (A Jumar is a mountaineering device that assists in climbing back up a cliff, which was the second part of the event.) SSG Helvig judged the teams’ skill in lashing Randy to the litter, performed safety checks and choreographed the rough-hewn ballet to position competitors dangling over the cliff’s edge and set the litter into the ready position. He leaned over the ledge as each team went down, observing its progress in nursing (some, admittedly, more strug-

July 2009 I ARMY 55 Competitors perform pull-ups as part of the modified physical fitness test conducted during the predawn hours of the opening day of the Best Sapper Competition. gling and cussing than nursing) Randy down the cliff These guys get a lot out of it.” while barking orders to the rope team manning the brake The annual Best Sapper Competition started five years lines at the top. ago with six teams competing, all of which were stationed It was suggested that the cliff, which lacks a proper at Fort Leonard Wood. This year, 34 teams representing name, be named for SSG Helvig: Helvig’s Cliff—a notion units from around the Army came to participate, a bench- embraced enthusiastically by SSG Helvig and unopposed mark that allows sponsors to believe that the Best Sapper by anyone else, as everyone working for him just wanted Competition has achieved the strategic goals that drove its to get off the cliff without getting on his bad side, and thus inception—establishing a world-class event that is unique, kept their mouths shut. testing sapper and basic military engineer skills, and serv- SSG Helvig has been involved in planning and conduct- ing as a source of pride for the entire Engineer Regiment. ing the Best Sapper Competition since he joined the Sapper Leader Course cadre. “As soon as last year’s competition ended, we started planning this one,” he said. “About three months out, we really get hot, and one month out we validate [the event lanes]—all of that for one day, one event, but it’s really worth it to stage this competition.

SSG Boulina Rasavong and SGT Alan Forester—representing the 20th Engineer Battalion, 36th Engineer ,Fort Hood, Texas—carry their poncho raft to the helicopter pickup zone.

56 ARMY I July 2009 A team leaps from a CH-47D helicopter into the water during the helocast/swim event.

“Word has gotten out,” said one cadre member. The Best Sapper Competition spans four days—one administrative day and 52 hours for the physical competi- tion, followed by a small get-together and the award ceremony. Aside from the skill sets tested, the competition is different from others in the Army in that there is no leader board. No team knows its ranking as the competition progresses. The field is cut, however, at the end of the first struggle day to 20 teams and at the end of the ashore after com- second to 10 teams, which continue to pleting the swim. the final round. The first day of competition started at 3:45 A.M. with a nonstandard physi- cal fitness test. Sit-ups, push-ups and pull-ups were counted in the dim illu- mination of fluorescent lamps in a semirigid, hangar-like building, fol- lowed by a 3-mile run in the dark with participants wearing head- lamps—a moving cluster of bobbing light specks. That was followed by the helo- cast/poncho raft event, arguably the most spectacular event and the one most accessible to the public, a crowd- pleaser in every respect. With their rucksacks tied into a poncho raft, teams jump from the ramp of a Chi- nook helicopter into a lake, line up and swim to shore as fast as they can. Following was a round-robin series of events that tested basic soldier skills such as marksmanship and en- gineer skills such as specialized de- molition—all of which are sapper skill sets. After that, teams had the opportu- nity to sleep for four hours (optimally, but probably less) and then went on a 1 rucksack road-march of 15/2 miles

A competitor gives it his all to shave seconds off his team’s swim time.

58 ARMY I July 2009 1LT Michael Leak from the 31st Engineer Battalion, 1st Engineer Brigade (31st Eng. Bn., 1st Eng. Bde.), Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., fires an M9 pistol during the stress-fire marksmanship event.

A soldier unpacks demolition material to prepare breaching charges.

with a four-hour cutoff time. Whittled down by the road 1 march to 20 teams, the continuing teams were allowed 2/2 hours of rest before heading to the second day’s events, re- volving around the “sapper stakes,” which interlace spe- cialized engineer events with physical fitness events such as an obstacle course, after which teams must road-march to each testing lane. After two more hours of rest, teams compete on a night land-navigation course. Cut to 10 teams by their land-naviga- tion times, and after a minimum rest time of an hour and a half, the final (and butt-kicking) phase begins: the X-Mile Run, which involves running but is bet- ter described as a physical beat-down. This is the X-Run task menu: Run the first half-mile wearing protective masks; remove masks and continue running to the log cut-and-carry event—saw through a log with a two-man crosscut saw, then pick up a 150-pound log section and run to the next event, the Ban- galore crate carry—run to the next event carrying a full rope-handled crate. Then teams move a pile of dummy M-15 antitank mines through a short obstacle course (carrying one or two mines at a time) and continue running after completion. Next is a truck-tire flip and a run to the picket- pounding station (where teams ham- mer pickets into the ground). Teams run on to the dummy carry, run on to a sandbag carry and run to the final event, door breaching—breaching two doors by hand—followed by a short Under strobe lights and while sprint to the finish line. The fastest enduring other stress effects, time was 80 minutes flat. The total a team evaluates and treats simulated victims during the first distance was 9 miles. aid portion of the competition. From beginning to end, the 2009 Best Sapper Competition covered more than

60 ARMY I July 2009 MAJ Stephen Peterson, 31st Eng. Bn., 1st Eng. Bde., crawls under the water-hazard log on the physical endurance course.

CPT Joshua Eggar and 1LT Christopher Williammee, representing the 72nd Engineer Company, Fort Riley, Kan., traverse the three-rope bridge on the physical endurance course.

40 miles (running or road-marching) and more than 30 sepa- rate events. The winning team, earning the 2009 Best Sapper title, was 1LT Shawn Hogan and MSG Michael Behkendorf, rep- resenting the 7th Engineer Battalion, 20th Engineer Brigade, Fort Drum, N.Y. Placing second were CPT Mark Gillman and SSG Gor- don Paulson, representing the 66th En- gineer Company, 25th Divi- sion, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. To the surprise and delight of the crowd attending the award ceremony, a team of West Point cadets placed third: CDT Jonathan Kralick and CDT Do- minic Senteno, representing, of course, the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., and intending to branch as Engineer officers. Pointing to MSG Behkendorf, 1LT Hogan said the tough- est part of the competition was “keeping up with him.” MSG Behkendorf has competed in the last three Best Sap- per Competitions, placing in the top-10 finishers the first

A team loads a mock casualty aboard a Chinook helicopter during the casualty evacuation portion of the competition.

July 2009 I ARMY 61 Top left, representing the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., CDT Dominic The top 10 teams begin the final event in the Best Senteno swings a grappling hook for a dis- Sapper Competition, the X-mile run (9 miles this tance throw while his teammate, CDT year), wearing protective masks as basic and Jonathan Kralick, observes. Center, a advanced individual training soldiers from the team performs calculations for a demoli- Maneuver Support Center and Engineer School, tion event. Right, 2LT William Toft, from the Fort Leonard Wood, cheer for them. 72nd Engineer Company, 1st Engineer Battalion, Fort Riley, measures an I-beam on the steel-cutting lane. time with another partner, and plac- ing second with 1LT Hogan last year. “Placing second left a bad taste in my mouth,” MSG Behkendorf said, “and I had to try again.” Both men said it was their last chance to try for the title as a team; both were weeks away from deploy- ing to Iraq at the time of the competi- tion. (They likely will be deployed by the time this issue prints.) MSG Behk- endorf also was leaning on the rhetor- ical crutch of advancing age—the time-honored “getting-too-old” ex- cuse from a man who probably can pitch an anvil for distance and road- march until next Christmas … maybe dragging that anvil. MSG Behkendorf said they had planned to tweak some finer points of strategy, based on last year’s experi- ence. “During the rucksack march, we thought we’d just hang with the team setting the pace, then pass them and see how they reacted. Last year, we passed them, and those guys passed us back. This year, we just ran a little faster.”

A team saws through a log during the X-mile run.

62 ARMY I July 2009 “The toughest part was on day one, the helocast/poncho raft swim,” he con- tinued. “I’m not an Olympic swimmer, and it was pretty tough.” The final X-Mile Run was difficult, said 1LT Hogan. “By that time, it’s just hard to keep moving.” The lieutenant said that competing is a reward in itself. “It’s good to be around all the best and the brightest,” he said. “It’s a chance to see how our peers are doing and what they are do- ing. We can just sit down and talk. It’s a competition, but everybody tries to help each other.” CPT Douglas Solan, Sapper Leader Course company commander and self- described chief execution coordinator for the 2009 Best Sapper Competition, said the event “has grown in popularity and respect … to be the premier event for the Engineer Regiment. Next year, it will be at least as large [in terms of the number of teams], if not twice as large, A competitor carries inert and it will be the 25th anniversary of antitank mines during a the Sapper Leader Course—a signifi- relay stage of the X-mile run. cant milestone for a course that was

A soldier slams a bar into a doorframe during the final event of the X-mile run.

The X-mile run winners—who also won the competition—cross the finish line in 80 minutes.

64 ARMY I July 2009 The 2009 winning team: 1LT Shawn Hogan and MSG Michael Behkendorf from the 7th Engineer Battalion, 20th Engineer Brigade, Fort Drum, N.Y., hold aloft the Best Sapper Competition Trophy.

Above left, the second-place team, CPT Mark Gillman and SSG Gordon Paulson, representing the 66th Engi- neer Company, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and above right, the third-place team, CDT Kralick and CDT Senteno, representing the U.S. Military Academy, receive honors from COL Bryan Watson, commandant of the U.S. Army Engineer School, and CSM Robert Wells, the school’s command sergeant major. originally supposed to be around for a few months. Its commanding general of the U.S. Army Maneuver Support original purpose was to bring in company leadership and Center and Fort Leonard Wood, said, “These skills are criti- train them on nonstandard engineer tasks above the level cal for full spectrum operations.” they were getting to better serve our infantry counter- “We are trying to run a world-class event, and at the parts.” same time keep it relevant to what they are being exposed The need for nonstandard engineer skills didn’t disap- to downrange,” said MSG James Watnes, chief instructor pear, and neither did the Sapper Leader Course, open now for the Sapper Leader Course. to the range of NCO ranks and students from outside the COL Bryan Watson, commandant of the U.S. Army Engi- Engineer branch, and to sister services and foreign allies. neer School, said at the Best Sapper Competition award Last year, the course awarded the Sapper tab—authorized ceremony, “The reason we have sappers is because the by the Army for graduates about four years ago—to 433 force needs them … The sapper says to the infantry and to personnel. the Army, ‘I will lead the way,’ and when you are in a Observing the Best Sapper events, MG Gregg F. Martin, pinch, you will follow them.” (

66 ARMY I July 2009