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Maintenance is not just for mechanics . 

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Maintenance is for formations . It is 

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for everyone in that formation . Today 

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is the Mechanic of the Year competition 

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2026 . This is the 3rd year we're 

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hosting the competition , and this is 

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the biggest it's been yet . A lot of 

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people come in with the notion that 

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today is about proving you wrong , but 

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I wanna tell you that it's really about 

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proving you right . First and foremost 

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is to learn . Like , let's bring them 

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in and let's learn that higher level 

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maintenance that they . Don't get to 

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learn at the unit level . It provides 

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them an opportunity to come into an 

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environment where there are subject 

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matter experts to help develop them . 

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They will face complex problems , 

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things that they might not usually face 

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at the unit , and probably the biggest 

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thing is that they begin to build those 

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networking relationships and everyone 

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knows that the National Guard is very 

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small , so these soldiers will be in 

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contact with different soldiers from 

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different units and hopefully create 

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some cross collaboration . For future 

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operations it very much gives an 

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understanding of shortfalls that are 

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not there on a regular in base training 

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and that might be expected going into 

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an active training scenario or even 

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deployment . It definitely brings a 

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sense of morale to the unit that 

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carries on to bring credit to your unit . 

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It's just a nice thing to be able to 

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represent Gulf Company and uh put a , 

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put us in the spotlight a little bit .