USAACE honors Best Squad, Warriors, Drill Sergeant of the Year

FORT NOVOSEL, Ala. — After a grueling week of competition held at Fort Novosel and Eglin Air Force Base, the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence honored its best squad, and the Noncommissioned Officer, Soldier and Drill Sergeant of the Year, as well as the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command NCO of the Year, during a ceremony at the U.S. Army Aviation Museum July 28, 2023.

Twenty competitors arrived at Fort Novosel July 23 to compete across four days of events testing their mental and physical fitness. The USAACE squads represented 1st Aviation Brigade, 110th Aviation Brigade, and the 164th Theater Airfield Operations Group. The drill sergeants were from Fort Novosel and Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.

Events included the Army Combat Fitness Test, weapons qualifications, grenade range, day and night land navigation, swimming, six-mile ruck march, obstacle course and board appearance.

Command Sergeant Major Kirk R. Coley, Army aviation branch command sergeant major, welcomed attendees.

“Thank you all for coming out and helping us celebrate and recognize these warriors who have competed over the last couple weeks and in some cases months as they’ve had to make multiple training and preparation to get to this point …. It’s an honor to have you all attending here today to help us do that,” Coley said.

“The Army has a rich history of competition and there’s lots of reasons behind why we compete — to build pride, esprit de corps, to help build a culture of friendly competition to help fight and win, identify how we train disciplined and physically fit Soldiers, and that’s what we recognize this week behind all these competitions we held here at the USAACE level,” Coley said.

This is the second year that the annual competition has emphasized the squad, Coley explained, and the Soldiers came together as a team and helped each other throughout the week.

“It’s awesome to identify an individual Soldier’s strengths and weaknesses, but the unity of a squad, you know, can win battles, win wars, if we get that right,” he said.

The USAACE winners are:

• 2023 USAACE Drill Sergeant of the Year is Staff Sgt. Forrest Minahen, 128th Aviation Brigade.

• The Best Squad winner is 1st Aviation Brigade: Staff Sgt. Gabriel Martinez, Sgt. Nicolas Villegas, Private 1st Class Edwin Melendez, Private 1st Class Patrick Adams, and Private 1st Class Ethan Hoff.

• The 2023 USAACE Noncommissioned Officer of the Year is Staff Sgt. Gabriel Martinez, 1st Aviation Brigade.

• The 2023 USAACE Soldier of the Year is Private 1st Class Patrick Adams, 1st Aviation Brigade.

The AMCOM 2023 NCO of the Year is Staff Sgt. Tyler Snyder, Aviation Center Logistics Command.

Senior enlisted leaders presented the Army Commendation Medal to each of the winners for their outstanding duty performance.

Staff Sgt. James E. Lark, G-3 operations NCOIC, who helped oversee the competition this year, said he was proud of the competitors.

“It’s been strenuous on them, but they’ve been maintaining and executing the tasks given,” Lark said.

Early in the competition, the Soldiers were able to do weapons familiarization refresher training in the EST 2000 before heading out to the range.

“I think the thing they were probably looking forward to the most was range day, going out there and getting to shoot.”

The competition provided scheduled “mystery events,” including a flight in a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to Eglin Air Force Base to complete a challenging obstacle course, and returning to Fort Novosel.

The competition was more leader-driven this year, Lark said. He provided the guidance to the squad leaders at night, and expected them to relay it to their squads.

Lark said during one transition, he placed two junior Soldiers in charge of movement and loading and unloading on the helicopter. The Soldiers came to him later to thank him because they had never been in charge of anything before.

Minahen, the Drill Sergeant of the Year, said the competition brought together people from different occupational specialties.

“I personally work in aviation, but not everybody in the USAACE competition is directly from aviation. I am a Black Hawk crew chief and maintainer by trade, so a lot of this stuff is not my bread and butter. I’m used to flying around and transporting people from point A to point B, not necessarily going through the woods myself from point A to point B, so I’ve learned a lot from the other competitors who have taught me, and hopefully I’ve taught them some stuff as well, using different perspectives that we’ve gained in our different career paths through the Army,” he said.

He said the competition was tough but also a lot of fun.

“I’ve wanted to compete in something like this for most of my career. I’ve done a lot of boards in my time but not a whole lot of weeklong competitions where its physical, mental, psychological, and there’s a lot of different things going on at the same time. It’s huge for me to be able to take this win and move on to the next level and continue to test myself and see what my limits are,” Minahen said.

Being named USAACE Drill Sergeant of the Year made him reflect on the 128th Aviation Brigade, and the Soldiers in his charge.

“I constantly tell them that they need to strive to be better, to be the best that they can be, because that’s the Army’s motto, right, so I want to continue doing that myself and continue winning so I can represent them as well, because each Soldier matters to me, and demonstrating what I want from them as well,” Minahen said.

The USAACE winners will now advance to the TRADOC level competition in August.