The biggest challenge for him, Neumeister said, was learning a new skill, becoming an expert on it and then “completely brain dump” the information and master something else. He has since transferred to the Colorado Army National Guard’s 19th Special Forces Group, where he will serve as a full-time intelligence analyst.Įarning the ESB has been a real confidence booster as he moves into a full-time job with a highly specialized unit in Denver, Neumeister said. Going to the ESB competition at Fort Drum was Neumeister’s last official act as a member of the New York Army Guard and the 10th MCPOD, a unit which supplements the 10th Mountain Division headquarters. Neumeister, a signals intelligence analyst, said he signed up for the ESB competition when his chance to go to Air Assault School fell through. “And at the very least, if I failed, I know I would have learned a lot of stuff I could bring back to my unit.” “Just having the word ‘expert’ attached to you is awesome,” he said. “Because it is a new badge, and not many people have it, it was something I wanted to go for,” Weber said. He got interested in tackling the badge after talking to Sonneville, Weber said. That was probably because it was the first set of tasks they had to complete and he had to get used to the system, Weber said. Weber, a part-time college student and full-time security guard who is also a cavalry scout in Alpha Troop, said he also found the weapons lane challenging. They also had to learn to break down the new M-17 Sig Sauer pistol because that is the pistol issued to 10th Mountain Division Soldiers. 50 caliber machinegun and the M249 squad automatic weapon without making a mistake. Sonneville, a cavalry scout and team leader in the 2nd Squadron, 101st Cavalry’s Alpha Troop, said it was “kind of overwhelming” to work through tasks involving the Mark 19 grenade launcher, the M-2. The tasks are broken down into three lanes: weapons tasks, medical tasks and patrol tasks which involve things like map reading, transmitting a spot report and emplacing a Claymore mine.
Expert soldier badge plus#
“With the 30 plus tasks that you have to perform near flawlessly it can get extremely stressful and overwhelming,” Blount explained. The toughest part of the two weeks for him, Blount said, was “maintaining that outward appearance of constant motivation” for the other Soldiers and “managing the stress and anxiety.” “We would stand there and test each other while we were getting ready to go through the lanes,” Sonneville said. “We wanted to make sure we didn’t leave anybody behind,” Blount said.
Expert soldier badge full#
“Once we got there and we saw what it was all about and how challenging it was, it was pretty clear we were going to succeed or fail as a group,” said Blount, a full time human resource specialist. The New York Guard Soldiers arrived at Fort Drum early so they could get a jump on the training and then they resolved to work together throughout the program, Blount said. 20 to 26, gave Soldiers a chance to review the skills. The session run by the 10th Mountain Division allocated two weeks for training and testing. William Neumeister, assigned to the 10th MCPOD had to successfully complete 30 Soldier tasks, complete a physical fitness assessment, and complete a timed 12-mile foot march. Nicholas Weber, both assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 101st Cavalry and Spc. 1st Class Ryan Blount, a member of the 427th Brigade Support Battalion Sgt.
Those Soldier earn the Expert Infantry Badge and Expert Field Medic Badge.Īs of July, according to Army Training and Doctrine Command, only 19% of the 5,000 Soldiers who have sought the Expert Soldier Badge have passed the course. The four men joined another 950 Soldiers across the Army who have earned the badge.Ĭreated in October 2019, the Expert Soldier Badge is open to all Soldiers who are not infantrymen, Special Forces Soldiers or medics. 1, 2021, following two weeks of training and testing at Fort Drum. FORT DRUM-Four Soldiers became the first in the New York Army National Guard to earn the new Expert Soldier Badge on Oct.