{"id":447784,"date":"2025-05-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=447784"},"modified":"2025-05-15T17:00:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T17:00:40","slug":"best-sapper-competition-team-from-the-great-place-shares-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=447784","title":{"rendered":"Best Sapper Competition team from The Great Place shares experience"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n From left, Staff Sgt. Brandon Burnett assists his teammate, 1st Lt. Jonas Ebner, the two making up Team 20 from the 20th Engineer Battalion, Fort Cavazos, Texas, with the sandbag dummy carry during the 2025 Best Sapper Competition at Training Area 97 on Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
\n (Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Amanda Sullivan, Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs )<\/span>
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FORT CAVAZOS, Texas \u2014 <\/strong>The 18th annual Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers Best Sapper Competition was held April 25-28 at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, with 35 two-person teams.<\/p>\n

The Best Sapper Competition is geared to not only name the best sapper team, but also test competitors mentally and physically under extreme conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned a lot about myself,\u201d said 1st Lt. Jonas Ebner, 87th Combat Engineer Company (Armored), 20th Engineer Battalion, 36th Engineer Brigade. \u201cIt was pretty physically demanding and a lot harder than I thought it would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fort Cavazos fielded two teams for the competition \u2014 Staff Sgt. Brandon Burnett and Ebner from 20th Eng. Bn., 36th Eng. Bde., and 1st Lt. Michael Bromley and 1st Lt. Collin McBrierty from the 62nd Engineer Battalion, 36th Eng. Bde.<\/p>\n

Both Fort Cavazos teams placed in the top 10, with the 20th Eng. Bn. finishing ninth and the 62nd Eng. Bn. placing 10th.<\/p>\n

During the three-day contest, competitors spent more than 70 hours completing tasks including a written test, a multi-mile ruck march and other runs, obstacle courses, underwater tasks and land navigation. The competition is open to all ranks, military occupation specialties and services as long as at least one member on each team has completed the 28-day Sapper Leader Course at the U.S. Army Engineer School in Fort Leonard Wood.<\/p>\n

Sappers, or combat engineers, have to master a variety of tasks, including demolition, bridge building, construction and minefield clearing to support combat operations<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like the Swiss Army knife for the Army,\u201d Ebner said.<\/p>\n

Ebner, a platoon leader, and Burnett, a squad leader in the 59th Combat Engineer Company (Armored), 20th Eng. Bn., 36th Eng. Bde., began training together for the competition late last year after Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

The Best Sapper Competition\u2019s challenges and tasks this year began abruptly during the opening ceremony with a run and continued throughout the three days.<\/p>\n

This was Ebner\u2019s first time to compete and Burnett\u2019s third.<\/p>\n

Ebner completed the Sapper Leader Course last year and served as a public affairs representative for the 20th Eng. Bn. at last year\u2019s Best Sapper Competition. He knew he wanted a chance to compete.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust seeing that exposure and environment, that competition made me want to compete,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause everyone wanted to be there and that\u2019s the sort of environment I want to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnett\u2019s motivation was similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing being around like-minded people and people that want to better themselves and care about what they do and what kind of person they are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While this is a competition, Burnett said there is also camaraderie and motivation among the teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in this competition, it\u2019s not like you\u2019re trying to beat the person next to you,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re trying to be the best you can be with everyone else there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first year Burnett competed for Best Sapper, his teammate was injured, and they did not finish the competition. In the second year, he had a last-minute partner replacement because of another injury. The team completed the course, but this year was his best finish.<\/p>\n

A big difference for Burnett this year was teaming up with Ebner.<\/p>\n

The two paired well together and drew on each other\u2019s strengths.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally believe that an NCO-officer (noncommissioner officer) pairing is really good because they complement each other,\u201d Burnett said.<\/p>\n

Ebner, a recent U.S. Military Academy graduate and the larger of the two, was fastest with math and calculations and better for the heavy items and drag. Burnett, a seasoned NCO with years of experience, was the go-to for the hands-on technical tasks and physical tasks that relied on body weight and endurance.<\/p>\n

They divided tasks when they could, Ebner said, but added they each could complete all tasks.<\/p>\n

With two strong, healthy competitors teamed together, they each were able to put forth full efforts on all tasks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to push myself physically more than I have before,\u201d Burnett said.<\/p>\n

There were many injuries, including seven on the first day, Ebner said. Burnett battled pre-hypothermia following a task in a lake, the fifth lane of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to swim out, do some measurements for some math, come back and do the math,\u201d Ebner said. \u201cI\u2019d say he was struggling from success because he has low body fat and cannot regulate temperature as well; that\u2019s why he was a lot colder than I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the competition Ebner and Burnett and the 62nd Eng. Bn. team stayed close in the rankings, with Ebner and Burnett finishing ninth overall on the last day. As the only two Fort Cavazos teams and their shared 36th Eng. Bde. higher headquarters, the two teams did have some extra competition between the two of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we\u2019re definitely a little more close to them now, after going through that together,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably somebody I\u2019ll talk to again in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From left, Staff Sgt. Brandon Burnett assists his teammate, 1st Lt. Jonas Ebner, the two making up Team 20 from the 20th Engineer Battalion, Fort Cavazos, Texas, with the sandbag dummy carry during the 2025 Best Sapper Competition at Training Area 97 on Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. (Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Amanda Sullivan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447786,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-447784","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\/447784","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=447784"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447787,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447784\/revisions\/447787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/447786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=447784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=447784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=447784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}