FORT DRUM, N.Y. (Sept. 3, 2015) -- Engineers assigned to B Company, 41st Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, participated in a company-level squad competition Aug. 24-28 dubbed "Sapper Stakes" at Fort Drum.
The event was originally designed as a basic demolitions certification range. However, Capt. Kevin Quigley, B Company commander, realized his engineers were ready for something more.
"Over the past couple of months I saw the company as ready for collective training," Quigley said. "To train as a team and perform at the squad level has really boosted morale. They see this as an opportunity to develop themselves and build cohesion within their teams."
Quigley also described how his decision to turn this year's Sapper Stakes into a competition falls in line with one of his command philosophies.
"What we are trying to build in Beast Company is a winning culture," he said. "Everything we do is a competition. You build teams through mutual hardship and friendly competition. Being able to see the success you have through hard work and being recognized as a top performer is incentive enough for anybody.
The winning team would receive certificates of achievement along with their team photograph displayed on the company's Sapper Stakes board.
To earn these accolades, five squads navigated one mile of training lane while negotiating nine physically-demanding and realistic tasks. These included troop-leading procedures, determining the percentage of a slope and radius of a curve, steel cutting, identifying improvised explosive ordnance and mine wire obstacle clearance.
While time was a consideration, the team who displayed the highest level of competency and motivation would earn their spot within the winner's circle.
Safety was paramount during the event, as these were not benign tasks. Each squad completed their day and night missions while handling pounds of plastic explosives and multiple improvised charges designed to clear mine wire obstacles.
Quigley described the latter as the "bread and butter" of a combat engineer's basic skill set.
"The time standard is 10 minutes," Quigley said. "Generally speaking, when breaching you expect to lose 50 percent of your squad … that's why the standard is so short. They need to get through the breach as fast as possible to get that infantry company moving."
Sgt. Ethan Carney, squad leader, understands the dangers associated with his profession and realizes the seriousness in training his team to standard.
"All it takes is once mistake, one misstep, and that could be your life," Carney said. "We have a lot of new Soldiers in the company, so much of this training was to ensure their proficiency."
Although Carney's squad did not place first in the competition, he was pleased with their performance and felt the lessons learned while training were invaluable to his squad's future successes.
"Figuring out how my new Soldiers react under fire or during stressful situations gives me foresight on where they will optimally perform on our team," he said.
Pfc. Caleb March, combat engineer, said the event was a good way to check knowledge against practical application.
"It's good to learn and take information in, but executing is also important," he said. "You could know everything and still be terrible at your job if you can't execute it."
The winners of the first Sapper Stakes competition were from 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon. Regardless of how the squads finished, all Soldiers who competed helped to define and shape the future of B Company, 41st Engineer Battalion. Quigley said building the standards for competition out of doctrine, while ensuring the Soldiers maintain a tactical mindset in the field, was invaluable experience.
"This event will help me shape platoon and company leadership level tactics, techniques and procedures when planning, training and preparing for training," he said.
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