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Nearly a year of training – embracing the blood, sweat, and tears – culminates for 16 Army ROTC teams this week as they face off against the world’s best at the 2024 Sandhurst Military Skills Competition held April 26-27, 2024, at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
“The Sandhurst International Military Skills Competition is certainly just that, it’s an international competition which brings in the best of the best of ROTCs from the United States, the service academies from the United States, and then some choice international teams from our partner forces that come and compete,” said Cadet Nicholas Nolan, a senior at Texas A&M University.
“It’s a two-day competition with a five-day train up period where we’re evaluated on common soldiering tasks and skills as well as physical fitness in a competitive environment,” he added.
“It’s extremely physically taxing and certainly has that mental taxing piece, but it’s physical…I’ve been in the Army for seven years, and it’s certainly the most physically and mentally challenging thing I’ve ever done or frankly seen in the Army.”
Along with the rigorous training to be physically prepared, teams of nine cadets must establish and build a trust where they understand the different strengths and roles each person brings to the playing field.
For many teams, demonstrating that trust is more instrumental than the physical and mental preparation.
“We’re friends on and off the game plan, and we’re with each other side by side,” said Cadet Connor McCarthy, a senior at the Virginia Military Institute. “So, it makes it really easy, where we’re in the heat of the moment and things get tough or things get a little interesting, we know that I’ve got my guy or my girl to my left and right to pick me up no matter what we do.”
As part of developing future officers, Army ROTC establishes a foundation of cohesive teams and an understanding that within the inner dependence of the collective unit, there is strength in recognizing limits.
“I’m not as technically proficient as members of our team in some of the different skills that we have to learn, so I trust them to share their knowledge, research it themselves and teach it to our team,” said Cadet Augustine Senn, a senior at Oregon State University.
“I’m also trusting that each team member is going to push themselves when it gets physically and mentally difficult.”
Of the 16 Army ROTC teams competing this year, 12 are returning contenders from the previous year.
They see this as an opportunity to develop their team for a better performance this second time around.
“I think going last year presented us a huge advantage in our training plan because we were able to really focus on some of our weaknesses,” said Cadet Peter Herrmann, a senior at the University of Notre Dame.
“We really focused on rifle marksmanship, which we identified last year at the competition was not our strong suit. We also emphasized the Zodiac training and getting out on a boat to do the drills while being on a lake and paddling the boat to different locations…”
A repeat performance has also pushed many teams to set higher goals ahead of the competition.
“Winning matters at the end of the day,” said Nolan. “If we come away from it as winners it builds an internal culture within yourself and your team.”
To get to this point, each program fought for their spot at the brigade ranger challenges (usually held each fall) and have now reached the end of the road in their training. It all comes down to this week, this two-day competition that has become established as the premier international military skills competition.
“It’s a very rewarding experience to see them go from inexperienced young cadets, to being able to accomplish things like scoring expert over and over again on the rifle range and achieving their fitness goals, and all other goals along the way,” said Master Sgt. Zach Hagensen, Chief Military Science Instructor at the Virginia Military Institute.
“It’s a chance to be a member of a team and work towards a common goal and those are two things that you’re going to do in your military career.”
Over the course of this week, the competition will continue to heat up before reaching a pinnacle on April 27 when a winner is determined amongst the 10 United States Military Academy, 17 international, 16 Army ROTC, and five service academy teams.
“We have all put in countless hours of work for this competition,” said Cadet Luke Greer, a senior at the Virginia Military Institute. “We’ve shot thousands of rounds, we’ve done physical training for hours and hours, we work on our skills every single day.”
“I know we can go out there and win it, and I know the team believes that we can go out there and win it.”
Follow along @armyrotc for updates on all of the Sandhurst events.
| Date Taken: | 04.24.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 04.24.2024 21:35 |
| Story ID: | 469460 |
| Location: | WEST POINT, NEW YORK, US |
| Hometown: | COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS, US |
| Hometown: | CORVALLIS, OREGON, US |
| Hometown: | HOUSTON, TEXAS, US |
| Hometown: | INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, US |
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| Hometown: | NEW YORK, NEW YORK, US |
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