WASHINGTON D.C. (CLARKSVILLENOW) – The U.S. Army will hold its 14th annual Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers Best Sapper Competition at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri from March 30-April 1. This year’s competition will feature many firsts, including the first all-female team in the event’s history.
Captain Hilary Thomas and 1st Lieutenant Alyvia Orsini of the 21st Brigade Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division will make up the first-ever all-female combat engineer team to compete in the event.
Both Thomas and Orsini hold Sapper tabs, and Thomas is the 27th woman to obtain a Ranger tab. She is the third to hold both a Sapper and Ranger tab.
“The participation of an all-female team is a significant milestone for gender integration of the Combat Engineer technical field,” Maj. Gregory Bascomb II, 169th Engineer Battalion operations officer, told Army Times. “It demonstrates that the Combat Engineers continue to lead all other combat arms in this effort and the Sapper Leader Course leads the way over the other small unit tactics and leadership courses.”
The Best Sapper Competition is held each year at Fort Leonard Wood, home to both the U.S Army Engineer School and the U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence. The competition requires that each team feature at least one graduate of the Sapper Leader Course.
Competing soldiers will have to travel over 50 miles in 50 hours to complete a “series of combat engineer tasks including demolition and land navigation, as well as jumping out of a helicopter into a lake,” said the release.
Other firsts for this year’s competition include all-international and all-cadet teams. This is also the first year that every participant holds a Sapper tab.
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