U.S. Army National Guard and Reserve Soldiers assigned to Multinational Battle Group-East recite the Noncommissioned Officer's Creed during a graduation ceremony, Oct. 22, 2015, after successfully completing the U.S. Army Basic Leader Course held on ...

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. David DeSantis, a Basic Leader Course instructor from the 7th Army Noncommissioned Academy out of Grafenwoehr, Germany, leads a class of U.S. Army National Guard and Reserve Soldiers--deployed to Kosovo with Multinational Battle...

U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to Multinational Battle Group-East attend an ethics class, Oct. 10, 2015, as part of the U.S. Army Basic Leader Course held on Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo. This was the first cycle of the BLC for the current rotation of U.S. So...

Connecticut National Guard Spc. Martin Colon, a member of 1st Battalion, 169th Aviation Regiment, and assigned to Multinational Battle Group-East, takes notes during an ethics class, Oct. 10, 2015, as part of the U.S. Army Basic Leader Course held on...

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo - U.S. Army instructors from the 7th Army Noncommissioned Officer Academy, out of Grafenwoehr, Germany, recently completed the first training cycle of the of the newly named Basic Leader Course for National Guard and Army Reserve Soldiers assigned to Multinational Battle Group-East, Oct. 27 at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo.

A total of 50 Soldiers participated in the course, which began Oct. 7. The required junior enlisted military education course covered training, leadership and warfighting, with classes that included ethics, physical fitness, counseling and composite risk management.

The course also had a final field training exercise where Soldiers conducted key leader engagements and rehearsed handling high-value targets and weapons caches. The BLC also allowed Soldiers to the act as a patrol or team leader in the field, giving them an opportunity to make a plan and lead small groups toward an objective.

"Going through BLC was a great experience. I learned a lot, and I think it is a great opportunity to complete the course while deployed to Kosovo," said U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Reinaldo Velez, who is from the 398th Financial Management Support Detachment, out of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Velez was named the course's Iron Soldier in recognition of his physical fitness.

"There were definitely some challenging parts of the course," he said. "The instructors for the course were very good, and they taught me how to be a leader."

"The feedback from the Soldiers definitely pushes you forward to do better," said Staff Sgt. Willie Williams, a native of Atlanta, Georgia and a BLC instructor. At the graduation ceremony, Williams was named an honorary instructor.

Williams, who has been a BLC instructor for two years, said that this was his first time instructing National Guard and Army Reserve Soldiers.

"I was not sure what the difference would be teaching this group compared to active duty Soldiers, but I loved teaching them and really enjoyed the experience. This was a situation where they learned from me, but I also learned from them," he said.

"To see the Soldiers when the course started and then to see them now was a big transformation," said North Carolina National Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Ralph Johnson, the senior NCO for the MNBG-E and 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team headquarters

"To see the transformation in person was a good thing to observe," Johnson said.