OKLAHOMA CITY - Staff Sgt. Brock Wilson and Spc. Johnson Holcomb claimed the titles of Noncommissioned Officer of the Year and Soldier of the Year at the 2024 Oklahoma Army National Guard Best Warrior Competition, held at Camp Gruber Training Center, April 25-28.

Wilson, an Oklahoma City resident serving in the 120th Medical Company (Area Support), 120th Engineer Battalion, 90th Troop Command, and Holcomb, a member of the 1st Battalion, 279th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, competed alongside 18 other NCOs and junior enlisted from each of the OKARNG's major commands to earn their titles and will represent Oklahoma at the Regional Best Warrior Competition hosted by the Nebraska Army National Guard in May.



Wilson, who won second place in the 2023 NCO of the Year category, said he returned to "seal the deal" this year. He said while Best Warrior is a competition against fellow Guardsmen, it is a chance for the competitors to test themselves, learn their own strengths and weaknesses, and improve themselves before taking the lessons they learned to their respective units.

"Soldiers get a sense of pride [from competing]," Wilson said. "Every year we're going to crown someone Soldier of the Year and NCO of the Year and it's an amazing training opportunity that strengthens the Oklahoma National Guard as a whole."

The Best Warrior Competition tested the NCOs' and Soldiers' skills through day and night land navigation exercises, maneuvering through a demanding obstacle course, mastering Army Warrior Tasks, enduring a 12-mile ruck march, and showcasing marksmanship at multiple weapons ranges. Wilson said this year's competition was tougher than last year's and he was impressed by the skill of his fellow competitors.

"Every single person was working as hard as they could all weekend and everybody was faced with a lot of adversity, whether it be weather, lack of sleep or just not knowing what the next event was," Wilson said. "It was amazing to see how everyone responded to those challenges."



Holcomb, the winner for the Soldier of Year category, said he's been preparing for the competition since he won his battalion's Best Warrior competition earlier this year.

"[Winning] means a lot to me," Holcomb said. "I've put so many miles on my car between home and the armory to get up there and get hands-on training with the weapons systems and things I needed to know. Along with balancing life, work, college, air assault school, all the hard work is finally paying out and this is great to see."

Holcomb said competing in the competition has exposed him to many units and Guard members he may not have met without having competed.

"I've met so many people here that are in my brigade and other brigades,” Holcomb said. “I've met people who are just like me who are motivated and give it their all, and I think that's great to see I'm not one of the only ones like that."

Command Sgt. Maj. John Hernandez, state command sergeant major for the Oklahoma Army National Guard, said despite being a competition, Best Warrior brings Guardsmen together to build better teams across the OKARNG.

"Competition breeds excellence among Soldiers," Hernandez said. "Our Citizen-Soldiers in Oklahoma constantly strive to be the best at what they do, and events like this provide them with the platform to showcase their skills and learn from their peers."

Competitors found themselves facing a new challenge this year when during a mystery event, they were challenged with a scenario designed to test their concealment and evasion skills.

The competitors were given 20 minutes to enter a heavily wooded area and tasked with camouflaging themselves before several of the sergeants major supporting the event began searching for them.

What the competitors were unaware of is the sergeants major would be aided by multiple unmanned aircraft systems, commonly referred to as drones, provided by the Oklahoma National Guard Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems School.



Ada, Oklahoma resident Staff Sgt. Reece Heck, a member of the 145th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, was one of the NCOs who escaped detection and recounted the feeling of hearing the UAS circling above his location before moving on.

"It was nerve-wracking to know they were using drones to look for us," Heck said. "Imagining it as a real-life situation where the sound of death is above you is a little scary. I was confident that I was well hidden, but I wasn't sure how close they could get to me, and that is a very uneasy feeling."

The cUAS's drones searched for the Guardsmen from various heights, peering through Camp Gruber's dense foliage with infrared cameras, and at one point used a small first-person-view UAS to fly below the canopy level.

Col. Shane Riley, the director of military support for the Oklahoma National Guard, which oversees the cUAS School, said the event was included to challenge the Soldiers and NCOs to take that feeling of uneasiness back to their units and begin talking with fellow Guardsmen about the threats UAS pose on modern battlefields.

"Here at Best Warrior, we are looking for ways to expose Soldiers to new threats that exist on the battlefield today," Riley said. "In particular we've brought in some 'threat drone' replication capabilities to expose Soldiers to the need to think about their entire environment--not just in a 2D space, but in 3d space as well--and how to protect yourself.”

Wilson said the UAS challenge highlights the need for Guardsmen to adapt to changes being seen in places like Ukraine and the Middle East where drones are changing the way the military fights.

"It makes us adapt,” Wilson said. “We can't sit and stay stagnant as the same Army otherwise we'll become inferior. We need to be adapting and evolving, and implementing challenges like these into competitions is one of the first steps to really growing our skill set as an Army."