by SFC Peter Morrison, National Guard Bureau
A Scout team with the Illinois Army National Guard’s 2nd Squadron, 106th Cavalry Regiment, took third place in the Gainey Cup Best Scout Competition this past May.
The intense five-day competition tested 24 of the best teams from cavalry units around the world. The event featured teams from the U.S. Army, including three from the Army National Guard, as well as two teams from Canada, one from the United Kingdom and one from the Netherlands.
The six-man team representing the Illinois Army National Guard consisted of: 1LT Robert Springer, SGT Zechariah Johnson, SGT Evan Westart, SPC Daniel Delinski, SPC Matthew Runyon and PFC Michael Cates.
The competition tested each team’s knowledge and proficiency in fundamental cavalry scout tasks including area reconnaissance, medical skills, a foot march, physical fitness test, land navigation, live-fire operations, and weapons knowledge and handling.
Johnson, the team leader from Illinois, said they have been working toward the Gainey Cup Competition for years so being there meant a lot to them, as did proving that they belonged on the field.
Last January, teams from throughout the Army National Guard went head-to-head to determine which teams would be chosen to represent the Guard in the competition. After a grueling evaluation of the best teams in the Army National Guard, they narrowed the field down to teams from Illinois, West Virginia and Nevada.
For Army National Guard teams, the path for competing began with an assessment by cadre from the Army National Guard Warrior Training Center (WTC) at Fort Benning. Teams that made the cut then returned to the WTC for a month-long train-up prior to the competition.
“The guys who trained us were phenomenal. They smoked us, they worked us six days a week, 12-hour days, but they taught us a lot leading up to the competition,” said Johnson. He went on to add that the instructors helped to mentally prepair the team for how hard the competion would be. “We knew it was going to be a tough few days, so we tried to be tough about it. We didn’t let any little mistakes get to us. We just shouldered down and [pushed] through”.
Named after the first senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired CSM William J. Gainey, the Gainey Cup has been held every other year since 2013. After the five-day competition of nearly 24-hour operations, the Army National Guard teams performed well in a competitive field.
“I have a full-time job, I go to school full time and I am in the Guard part time, I want to show them, ‘hey, I can do this too’. I think that’s a motivating factor,” said Johnson. “We are proud of how far we have come and we are confident in our ability to do what we do. There are people in the Army National Guard that can hold up to Big-Army level. That’s one of the things we wanted to prove here.”
The West Virginia Army National Guard team placed eleventh and the Nevada Army National Guard team followed in 12th place.
