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The "super team" of Sgt. Maj. Walter Zajkowski and Master Sgt. Eric Turk are the winners of the 2011 Best Ranger Competition. Zajkowski, a 2007 Best Ranger Competition champion, and Turk, who won last year, are the first repeat winners in more than ...
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Fifty teams kicked off the 28th annual Best Ranger Competition with a three-mile buddy run before dawn Friday. The teams head into a foot movement and canoe race to round out the morning. Events are scheduled around the clock, with teams moving to th...
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Sgt. Maj. Walter Zajkowski, left, and Master Sgt. Eric Turk, both of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, raise their newly-awarded pistols during the 2011 Best Ranger Competition awards ceremony April 18, 2011, at Fort Benning, Ga. Turk also won th...
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FORT BENNING, Ga., April 18, 2011 -- The "super team" of Sgt. Maj. Walter Zajkowski and Master Sgt. Eric Turk are the winners of the 2011 Best Ranger Competition.
At an awards ceremony today at Freedom Hall, Secretary of the Army John McHugh congratulated the teams on their accomplishment.
"I can't begin to express how truly impressed I was," said McHugh, who spent Sunday watching the competitors battle through the helocast and water confidence course before racing through the final buddy run. "It's truly a test of tactical, mental and technical proficiencies and those are the tools that every successful Soldier, every successful leader, has to have on the battlefield."
"Just qualifying for this competition says that you're among the best. But by finishing it, you are the very best," he said.
Zajkowski, a 2007 Best Ranger Competition champion, and Turk, who won last year, are the first repeat winners in more than two decades.
Turk is only the second competitor in Best Ranger Competition history to win the competition back to back.
Sgt. Paul Scurka is the only other two-time champ, winning the competition in 1985 and 1986.
Team 14 of the 75th Ranger Regiment and Team 42 of the Ranger Training Brigade rounded out the top finishers.
Team 14's Staff Sgt. Charles Cogle and Spc. Chris Broussard were in close competition with Zajkowski and Turk heading into Sunday. But the team faltered in a series of missteps at the Darby Queen Obstacle Course which led them to finish second overall.
Cogle said finishing second, while an honor is bittersweet and the pair is already planning another run at the title.
Of the 50 teams who began the competition before dawn Friday, only 31 crossed the finish line Sunday afternoon.
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