U.S. Army Europe and Africa Best Warrior Competition

U.S. Army units from across Europe converge to compete for the title of Best Warrior. The week-long event tests Soldier skills, endurance, fortitude and resourcefulness as well as intellectual and problem-solving capabilities. Officers, noncommissioned officers and junior enlisted Soldiers compete in separate categories and are evaluated on general military knowledge, physical fitness and common military tasks.

While some of the competition tasks are standard such as the Army Physical Fitness Test, written test, marksmanship, ruck march, land navigation and command sergeants major board; some of the challenges such as chemical defense and medical tasks - added to the stress of fitting everything into a few short days - makes the competition extra tough.

Winners in the NCO and junior enlisted categories will advance to represent U.S. Army Europe and Africa at the Army Best Warrior Competition at Fort Lee, Virginia.

For more imagery, videos and news visit our DVIDS feature page at: U.S. Army Europe and Africa Best Warrior Competition

The Competitors

2021 U.S. Army Europe and Africa Best Warrior Competitors.

EBWC - Imagery

EBWC Videos

Video by Mike Tate

Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks: Creating an Institutional Research Mindset through Data-Informed Decision-Making in Intermediate Joint PME

Air University Public Affairs

Feb. 21, 2024 | 18:20

Stephanie Erwin & Ronald Dains

As professional military education (PME) moves towards outcomes-based educational models, institutional leadership seeks to develop a more intentional institutional research mindset, one driven through informed data collection,
analysis, and decision-making, while ensuring the military educational experience remains adaptable and agile to meet future operational and strategic challenges. Such a shift is not bereft of challenges. Certainly, this includes moving from more inputs-centric models towards outcomes-based education but also bridging the gaps in discipline and occupation (military vs civilian academic) and establishing intrinsic faculty buy-in. One Intermediate Joint PME institution has sought to create this institutional research mindset through an intensive faculty development and collaboration effort in mixed institutional research teams, both informal and formal. Formal institutional research efforts included qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies. This presentation presents both the overall initiative and examples of the empirical research and findings within. As a whole this effort remains a
work-in-progress, however individual studies highlighted include a focused ethnography on wargame classification, a concurrent triangulation mixed methods study on student rewrites, a descriptive statistical analyses on geo-bachelor and declination student status, an explanatory sequential mixed method study to determine distinguished graduates, and others. In support of creating an institutional research mindset and to best address the articulated research endeavors, the school sought to enhance faculty development and collaboration by creating cross-departmental and interdisciplinary research teams comprised of civilian academics, permanent party military, and military fellows. This not only bolstered the research designs of individual studies but enabled an intrinsic institutional data-informed decision making mindset across the faculty including efforts towards enhanced data visualization, strategic lines of effort, and organizational change.