Fort Riley team places 9th in Warfighter Challenge
Spc. Michael A. Rosado, dog handler, 73rd MP Det., 97th MP Bn., left; Sgt. James Roosa, MP, 977th MP Co., 97th MP Bn., center and Pfc. Chris Jennings, MP, HHD, 97th MP Bn. cross the finish line of the 15-mile ruck march Sept. 16 during the 2012 Military Police World Wide Warfighter Challenge at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. COURTESY PHOTO
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Story by: Pamela Redford
1ST INF. DIV. POST
Fort Riley's own Sgt. James Roosa, military police officer, 977th Military Police Company, 97th Military Police Battalion; Pfc. Chris Jennings, military police officer, Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 97th MP Bn.; and Spc. Michael A. Rosado, dog handler, 73rd Military Police Detachment, 97th MP Bn., placed ninth overall in the 16th annual 2012 Military Police World Wide Warfighter Challenge at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
Led by Roosa, the "Guardians" went up against three-man teams of one noncommissioned officer and two Soldiers from 32 installations worldwide, Sept. 15 to 18, engaging in military occupation skill-specific tasks, battle drills and endurance tests that pushed their mental and physical fitness to the limits.
The four-day event was conducted in conjunction with the 71st anniversary of the Military Police Corps Regiment.
Participants were kept in the dark about the 10 warfighter events until immediately before they undertook each challenge, and they were not permitted to have any contact with their coaches once the event began.
Warfighter Challenge events were:
• Zeroing
• M26/M4/M9 transition fire
• Oral/written exam
• Physical endurance challenge
• Mounted route reconnaissance skills
• Day dismounted day and night land navigation course
• Warrior task/battle drills
• Combatives-style tournament
• Endurance march
Participants averaged about seven hours of sleep in four days, making events even more challenging than they already were, Jennings said.
"I'm still catching up," he said with a smile.
"This was a good, fun competition … We had a real strong team leader in Roosa. He wouldn't let us slack off at all and was always talking us up to help us push through the challenge," Jennings said.
Roosa, Jennings and Rosado were named the winners of the battalion's local version of the competition – the Guardian Challenge 2012 – which was Aug. 14 and 15 at Fort Riley.
One event the team excelled at was the physical endurance challenge. They took first place in the event, which began with challenging physical readiness training events and culminated with a 10K run and an eight-mile ruck march.
Ten minutes of one-leg pushups, two minutes of squats with a 25-pound kettle bell, two minutes of pull ups, two minutes of knee ups on pull up bars, several tire flips, a 10K run and an eight-mile ruck march comprised the event.
"When it came to anything physical, we knew that we had it. We could win any event when it came to the physical portion of it," Jennings said.
The "Guardian" team earned third place in the endurance march, and Rosado came in third place in the combatives program style tournament.
Sgt. 1st Class Lester S. Clason, chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear noncommissioned officer in charge, HHD, 97th MP Bn., coached the team, keeping them on an intense training schedule that involved long runs, ruck marches, combatives, skills tests and unorthodox physical training involving some mixed-martial arts and tire flipping, among other rugged workouts, in preparation for the national challenge.
"The training was awesome – a good refresher course on everything. (Clason) has a lot of connections … He's good to have as a coach," Jennings said.
Clason, who plans to continue coaching warfighter teams, said he was very proud of the trio's accomplishments.
"I could not be more proud than what I am," he said. "I was blessed with having a team like that. When you take three individuals who have never worked together and (train) in such a short time – it was just unbelievable how well they pulled together. By the time they went to competition, they were like brothers; they knew everything about each other."
While he did coach the team for a month prior to the national competition, Clason said he can't take any credit for it's success.
"It comes down to Sgt. Roosa being an NCO and knowing his guys like that – pulling them together and building that team. A coach can only go so far coaching them. They did a lot of training on their own and went above and beyond. That was due to Sgt. Roosa … He took it to a whole other level. This team definitely set the bar for teams to come," Clason said.