D-Series 2025: Honoring a Proud Mountain Legacy

FORT DRUM, NEW YORK – Ice groaned under the boots belonging to the Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division (LI), Feb. 13, 2025, at a Fort Drum, New York training area, as teams competed in the D-Series 2025 competition to reach the finish line of the final event.

The 10th Mountain Division (LI) commemorates the hardships and trials the original 10th Mountain Soldiers endured to prepare for combat by hosting an annual winter competition, known as D-Series. The name “D Series” refers to the culminating winter training event that the Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division went through from March-April 1944, while preparing for combat in the mountains of Italy.

D-Series 2025 is a multi-day competition, featuring 20 teams, which ran from Feb. 12 to Feb. 13, 2025, at training areas across Fort Drum, New York. The competition consisted of multiple events including, casualty evacuation lanes, holistic health and fitness contests, memory games, mountaineering lanes, weapons functions tests, and rifle and pistol stress shoots, all while marching, snowshoeing, and skiing between each station with 90 pounds rucksacks strapped to their backs, the same weight the original 10th Mountain Soldiers wore during their D-Series.

Soldiers assigned to C. Co, 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (LI), the team who finished in first place, received the Army Commendation Medal for their effort.

“This is a form of honoring the future by looking toward the past”, said Capt. Aaron Wrinkle, officiating officer of the D-Series 2025 award ceremony and protocol officer in charge for the 10th Mountain Division (LI). “Those Soldiers from the original D-Series established the foundation that the legacy of today’s division is built on.”

Wrinkle believes that coming to understand what the original D-Series Soldiers endured is a great way for Soldiers today to not only challenge themselves, but to grow as people as well.

“Nothing makes you understand what they went through taking those same steps they went through,” Wrinkle said. “You’re putting that same amount of weight on, you’re experiencing that same cold and discomfort, it kind of puts everything into perspective and allows you to grow from appreciating that someone else was capable of this too.”

For the unit who came in first place, competing in D-Series was not an individual feat, and winning was definitively a team effort.

“It feels really good to win this, all of these teams are great”, said Staff Sgt. George Matthews, the team leader of the winning team and infantryman assigned to C. Co, 2-14 IN, 1BCT, 10th Mountain Division (LI). “It was a lot of hard and fast work to get used to the winter and everything we would need to do, but we came together as a team, made sure no one could be liable to fail, and executed to win.”

Matthews affirmed the sentiment that Wrinkle held, admiration for the forefathers of the 10th Mountain Division (LI) and their ability to endure whatever was in front of them.

“You think about those Soldiers and the wool clothes and the leather boots they wore in that cold, and it gives you something more,” said Matthews. “Thinking of those guys and what they overcame and what they did it with, that gave me and my team the extra push to come out and win this.”

The Soldiers representing C. Co, 2-14 IN, 1BCT, 10th Mountain Division (LI) will go on to represent the division during this year’s Mountain Legacy Days in Vail, Colorado, later this February, where they will receive training to further develop their alpine capabilities and engage with the community about the importance of the legacy of the 10th Mountain Division.