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News:
Heslin, named top Drill Sergeant named
Staff Sgt. John Heslin was named the Drill Sergeant of the Year Friday after squaring off against Fort Benning's top drill sergeants in a weeklong competition.
Heslin, of 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, 198th Infantry Brigade, will compete for the 2011 U.S. Army Drill Sergeant of the Year title in June.
There, Heslin and runner-up, Staff Sgt. Robert Garvey, of 2nd Battalion, 58th Infantry Regiment, 192nd Infantry Brigade, will compete against top drill sergeants from active-duty and Reserve commands for the Army title.
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Commanding general recognizes volunteers
 Volunteering can be anything: driving a shuttle, coaching a sports team or greeting Soldiers as they return from deployment. But when everyone's involved, it adds up - in this case, to more than $1.9 million.
That's the amount totaled on the symbolic check presented April 26 to Maj. Gen. Robert Brown, post commanding general, during the Volunteer Appreciation Ceremony.
"Volunteering is the defining part of our Army," Brown said, addressing a crowd of more than 100 volunteers and their supporters.
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NFL contingent comes to Fort Benning
Lockout or no lockout, the NFL made an appearance on post last week.
Atlanta Falcons head coach Mike Smith, former Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick, and ex-players Spencer Tillman, Randy Cross and Jim Miller visited Soldiers here as part of Ron Barr's Sports Byline USA tour. The nationally syndicated sports-talk radio host broadcast a two-hour show live Friday afternoon from the Sand Hill Recreation Center.
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5th RTB Soldiers roll in post competition
The Ranger Training Brigade dominated Fort Benning's NCO and Soldier of the Year competitions Friday.
Staff Sgt. Raymond Santiago and Spc. Blaise Corbin, of the brigade's 4th Ranger Training Battalion, claimed top honors, and helped RTB close out a sweep of installation competitions it has competed in this year.
Sgt. 1st Class Chris Carbone and Capt. Brendon Terry, both of the RTB's 5th Ranger Training Battalion, previously won the installation's instructor and officer of the year competitions.
NCO and Soldier of the Year runners-up are Staff Sgt. Seth Tracy, of the 198th Infantry Brigade, and Pfc. Michelle Allen, of 1st Battalion (Airborne), 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
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Ready First Soldiers compete for Ranger slots
Seventy-four Soldiers from the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team "Ready First", 1st Armored Division, competed for a chance to attend the U.S. Army Ranger School in the "Ready First" Ranger Assessment Program on May 3-5.
The RAP is a mimic of the first three days of Ranger School that includes a Ranger Physical Fitness Test, three-mile buddy run, land navigation, obstacle course, 15-mile road march and water survival test.
Day one of the RAP opened with the RPFT. The RPFT differs from the normal physical fitness test in that all Soldiers are graded on the 17-21 year old scale, the two-mile run is increased to a five-mile run and each contestant is required to perform a minimum of six pull-ups.
Command Sgt. Maj. Dennis L. Smith, Ranger Training Brigade command sergeant major, was in attendance for the RPFT and spoke to the participants later that morning.
The main benefit of Ranger School is that Soldiers are dubbed leaders just by walking through the gates, said Smith. The course teaches you necessary traits to become a better leader, he added.
Smith also laid out what the candidates could expect at Ranger School. Sixty-one days of hard training, little food and minimal sleep all designed to mold Soldiers into quality leaders that can be relied upon in and out of combat.
After the three-day event, 45 of the 74 Soldiers who started passed all events of the RAP. This was a major improvement over the RAP ran just six months before in November.
Of the near 100 Soldiers that competed in November, only 12 passed, said Sgt. Maj. Wayne Phillips, operations sergeant major for the 6th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, "Blackhawks", 1/1 AD. Of the 12 that passed, only two made it all the way through and received their Ranger Tab, he added.
"Ready First" hopes to run a RAP every quarter, said Phillips. Every unit in the Army could benefit from more Ranger Tabbed leaders and this program helps prepare for the school, he said.
"Becoming a Ranger won't make you better than anybody else, but it will make you better than you are now," said Phillips.
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Dempsey outlines 9 focus areas for Army
ARLINGTON, Va. -- Army Chief of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey brought his intent for the Army of 2020 to the Association of the U.S. Army Institute of Land Warfare breakfast, leading off with a video accompanied by a song played by a band called "Disturbed."
"I'm a little short of a month in my new job and I'm trying to feel what the Army is all about," said Dempsey, adding too much time is spent trying to understand the Army when what really makes the Army is the way Soldiers feel about themselves.
He used the song in his video as one of the ways he reaches out to the young Soldiers whom he knows would immediately know the band. Of the senior leaders in his audience, for example, only one Soldier knew the singer at this morning's Association of the United States Army breakfast.
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Army marks 10-year Stryker anniversary
WARREN, Mich. -- What began as an ambitious vision in the minds of Army leaders in 1999 - to build a medium-class armored vehicle able to deploy quickly, transport troops safely, and bring agility and lethality across multiple platforms - has evolved into the battle-tested Stryker vehicle now celebrating its 10-year anniversary.
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Soldiers begin practice week for Warrior Games
WASHINGTON -- The second annual Warrior Games is gearing up for competition with a week-long training session in Colorado Springs, Colo., starting today.
Two hundred wounded, ill and injured athletes from across the services are training to compete for gold in seven different events during the Games: archery, cycling, wheelchair basketball, shooting, swimming, track and field, and sitting volleyball.
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Army warfighters go digital to hone skills
WASHINGTON, May 10, 2011 -- With more than 1 million service members on active duty in the United States, the military services, and especially the Army, are running short of a critical commodity -- training grounds. The problem, intensified by the winding down of two wars, is ratcheting up the interest of Army senior leaders in virtual solutions to real-world constraints.
"We have a lot of soldiers coming home to stations here in the United States, and ... we don't have enough terrain in many of those places to train those soldiers out on live ranges," Army Col. Anthony D. Krogh told American Forces Press Service.
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