Sgt. 1st Class Aaron Beckman
Age: 31
Current Unit: 7th Army Noncommissioned Officers' Academy
Current Position: Senior Small Group Leader
Component: Regular Army
Current Location: Grafenwoehr, Germany
Hometown: Venango, Nebraska
Years of Service: 12
GRAFENWOEHR, Germany - He is calm and unassuming; he speaks with authority when it comes to training and mentoring Soldiers. Sgt. 1st Class Aaron Beckman, senior small group leader (SGL) of Company C, 7th Army Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) Academy in Grafenwoehr, Germany, loves what he does for a living. He is a Soldier that loves soldiering.
"You can always take something from everyone, either how to do something well, or how not to do it," he said. "Learn from mission, and every senior, peer and subordinate."
Beckman leads a platoon of four staff sergeants and 48 sergeants in four squads. He leads, coaches, and counsels them in NCO leadership, during the stringent 390-hour Warrior Leader Course, a basic leadership course that provides Soldiers with an opportunity to acquire the skills, knowledge, and experience needed to lead a team size element.
Training others to be the best puts pressure on him to be the best, he said, to proof he could hold his own against other NCOs he accepted a challenge to compete in the 2009 Joint Multinational Training Command's NCO of the Year competition.
"I had to ensure my Soldiers were as good as I, or better than I am," he said.
Beckman won the title, and will move on to compete in the U.S. Army Europe competition,
Aug. 9-13, 2009.
"It was fun being a Soldier again, he said. "Anything you think a Soldier needs to be proficient at, we were tested on start-to-finish."
Deployed in 1999 to Kosovo; 2002 in Kuwait; and during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, Beckman is no stranger to what it takes to serve in the Army during war.
"Deployments give you the opportunity to apply what you have learned, perfect your battle drills, and take lessons learned to prepare for the next time," said Beckman. "There is no better way to get better than by actually doing your job."
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