{"id":243142,"date":"2024-08-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=243142"},"modified":"2024-08-02T08:13:21","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T08:13:21","slug":"intel-analyst-follows-esports-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=243142","title":{"rendered":"Intel analyst follows eSports dream"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Army News Service<\/p>\n

FORT KNOX \u2013 Hyper focused on game play, Average Joey B finishes his match, completing another successful mission for the Army eSports team.<\/p>\n

Staff Sgt. Joey Edwards, an intelligence analyst and NCO in charge for the Army eSports team, Marketing and Engagement Brigade, leads the eSports athletes as they compete at events across the nation.<\/p>\n

Call to Serve<\/strong><\/p>\n

Edwards joined the Army in October 2011, when he was in high school because of his cousin, Thomas Moore. Moore deployed to Iraq in infantry and after returning, he died in an accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw how much of an impact he had on my family and how much everyone looked up to him,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to become that for my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards served a year in Afghanistan, worked at the embassy in Mexico City, and said he loved working at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was crazy hours, but I would make a product, get an email saying the secretary of defense read it, and here are his comments on the product. That was amazing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Edwards said joining the Army and traveling helped give him a global perspective and invaluable friendships.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to create a more open mind to learn more about the world,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve gained invaluable skill sets, resiliency and friends who\u2019ve gone through the same things I\u2019ve done. I have friendships and camaraderie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaming<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first game system Edwards owned was a red Game Boy Pocket when he was five years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved it. I didn\u2019t know what I was doing most of the time, but it taught me how to read well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His brother got a PlayStation 2 and let him play sports games and Dragon Ball Z now and then. In high school, he bought a PlayStation portable. During his basic training in the military, he had a PS3. He played NBA 2K, basketball and Call of Duty\u00ae Black Ops 2. He spent more than 5,000 hours playing Rocket League\u00ae.<\/p>\n

He found out about the Army eSports team while he was serving overseas at the Combined Air Operations Center in Quatar. He joined the Discord server to communicate with the team, tried out and made the team.<\/p>\n

eSports<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Army eSports Team is a competition team with members drawn from active duty and the reserve. They operate much like the Golden Knights and the Army Marksmanship Unit to create awareness about the Army and the opportunities it provides, said Capt. Mimi Mejia, U.S. Army Recruiting Command Marketing and Engagement Brigade company commander.<\/p>\n

Edwards said he competes in 2X2 competitions, where it\u2019s two Soldiers versus two competitors like a bracket tournament, double elimination. They go through and win each game. They compete against other military branches or college athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team practices every day. They\u2019re scrimmaging. They\u2019re competing in tournaments. They\u2019re doing well,\u201d Edwards proudly said of his team.<\/p>\n

He said the best part of being on the eSports team is that you can be in the Army and still follow your passions.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can serve your country and still follow your sport,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The mission of the eSports team is not to be recruiters but to show the next generation the different roles Soldiers can have in the Army, said Mejia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of individuals come up at fan expos who are like, \u2018I didn\u2019t know the Army had an eSports team,\u2019\u201d Edwards said. \u201cWe talk to them a lot about gaming. They\u2019re just curious. We understand their mindset. We just tell them our Army story and play against them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards said eSports is a great way to highlight that the Army also has technical capabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Army is the only self-sustaining branch where we don\u2019t have to rely on the other branches to do anything,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can do everything ourselves. It helps when we\u2019re working as a team and using the other military branches, but we\u2019re the only self-sustaining branch.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he meets the next generation interested in the Army, he tells them, \u201cThe Army has every job you could possibly think of, IT, cyber, intel, all of the different support jobs, not just combat arms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Army News Service FORT KNOX \u2013 Hyper focused on game play, Average Joey B finishes his match, completing another successful mission for the Army eSports team. Staff Sgt. Joey Edwards, an intelligence analyst and NCO in charge for the Army eSports team, Marketing and Engagement Brigade, leads the eSports athletes as they compete at events […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243144,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243145,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243142\/revisions\/243145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/243144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}