photo by Sgt. Brian K. Parker Pfc. Matthew N. Phillips shoots rounds at pop-up targets with an M4. Phillips had never qualified with an M4, but still placed first in The Old Guard Soldier of the Year.

Soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment vied for The Old Guard’s Non-commissioned Officer and Soldier of the Year at Fort A.P. Hill, Va. The competitors navigated through 10 events ranging from a written essay to Army combatives.

‘‘The NCOs and Soldiers were chosen because they were the winners of the NCO⁄Soldier of the quarter boards. We had five NCOs and three Soldiers,” said Master Sgt. Mark Bourgeois, one of the cadre and the assistant operations NCOIC in the S-3 shop.

The first event was the Army Physical Fitness Test, consisting of two minutes of push-ups and sit-ups and a two-mile run. Sgt. David C. Browne, a member of 3rd Platoon, Company E, 4th Battalion pulled away from the competition with a score of 300.

‘‘I’ve been training for The Old Guard’s Iron Guard competition and that helped a lot, not only in the APFT, but in some of the other events too,” Browne said.

Browne fared particularly well, landing him in first place for the NCOs, said Bourgeois. Although Browne was promoted on May 1, he was allowed to compete against the other NCOs after proving himself in several boards.

‘‘I felt a little out of my league competing against NCOs, but it just made me train harder,” said Browne, who has been in The Old Guard for over two years.

Following the Army Physical Fitness Test, competitors were put head-to-head in the Army combatives event.

The combatives portion was scored by competitor placement. For example, first place received 10 points and was organized into brackets, said Sgt. 1st Class Troy Dennison, the NCOIC for the combatives event and military police liaison officer for The Old Guard.

‘‘Combatives was a real eye-opener for a lot of the candidates. A lot of these Soldiers never focused on this event, but they will need it when they go to the Army-wide competition,” Bourgeois stated.

Pfc. Matthew N. Phillips, a loader in the Presidential Salute Gun Battery, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, beat out the same Soldier twice in the combatives segment and took first place overall in the Soldier category.

‘‘I was surprised I got first place because the competition was pretty fierce. All of that training paid off,” Phillips said.

Phillips explained that a lot of the tasks involved Expert Infantryman tasks – something he had been training for since arriving at The Old Guard a year ago.

‘‘I went over the Soldier’s handbook every day and worked out a lot. During the actual competition I just tried my hardest,” said Phillips.

For many of the Soldiers, the six-mile road march was the most difficult. The Soldiers wore ‘‘full battle rattle,” and had to make the distance from the firing ranges to Wilcox camp.

Due to the high heat category, the candidates were forced to cut the road march short, but the cadre was still able to see which competitor stood out.

‘‘The road march is where we got to see who really wanted to be in the competition. You have to be really mentally and physically tough to do that in the heat,” Bourgeois said.

‘‘For training I would do at least one road march a week. Out there, I kept thinking, ‘Don’t quit. Don’t quit,’” said Browne.

The competitors also participated in Warrior Task testing, a written exam, NCO⁄Soldier board, day land navigation, M4 qualification and a reflexive fire task.

Some of the candidates had never fired with an M4, making the qualification more difficult.

‘‘We applied this event because any Soldier should be able to take a weapon off the battlefield and zero it to their specifications,” Bourgeois said.

‘‘I had never used an M4 before, but I just used common sense and did the best I could,” Phillips said.

Browne and Phillips will have to use common sense and more during the next step to becoming the Army’s NCO and Soldier of the year. The Military District of Washington NCO⁄Soldier of the year competition will take place July 11-18 at Fort A.P. Hill.