Spartan scout is USARPAC’s ‘Best Warrior’

  • Published
  • By Sgt. Eric-James Estrada
  • 4-25th IBCT Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  The Last Frontier is home to the Army's top noncommissioned officer in the Pacific Theater.

Army Staff Sgt. Adam White, a scout team leader with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 501st Infantry Regiment, was named the best noncommissioned officer after winning the U.S. Army Pacific's 2014 Best Warrior Challenge competition hosted June 9 to 13 at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

The Warrior Challenge is a competition designed to find the best NCO and junior enlisted Soldier in the Pacific. Soldiers from Korea, Japan and Alaska travel to USARPAC headquarters to vie for the sought-after prize of best in the Pacific. The four-day competition consisted of scored events to include a written examination, an appearance in front of a formal command sergeants major board, a rifle qualification and reflexive fire range, maneuvering a daytime land navigation course, night urban orienteering course, two mystery events, and a variety of demanding warrior tasks. At the end of the competition, points were tallied and the highest scoring NCO and Soldier were chosen as NCO and Soldier of the Year for USARPAC.

White had the highest cumulative score, and bested seven other division-level NCOs from across USARPAC.

White, a native of Porter, Texas, said he did not have a lot of time to prepare for the competition, but his seven years of experience in the infantry and scouts helped him to remain confident and win. Two weeks after winning the battalion-level board, he found himself in Hawaii competing at the USARPAC level.

"As far as getting in the books and studying ahead of time, I didn't have all those answers," White said. "When I walked in the board, I knew I was not going to know a lot of that knowledge, but a big part of the board is maintaining your composure, maintaining your confidence."

White performed second best overall during the formal command sergeants major board.
"Not winning that, set me back a little bit," White said. "I was pretty well ahead of all the competition until they did the board and the written test. The second day was pretty stressful for me because I knew I wasn't as prepared as I'd like to be."

Knowing he had ground to make up, White made sure to excel at the shooting event and reflexive fire range. Remembering to keep his composure and trust in the fundamentals, he outshot his competitors to take both events and regain his footing in the race.

"Some of the guys were giving me a little bit of heckling because I'm sniper qualified," White said. "I told them that has nothing to do with reflexive fire. It's a totally different weapon system, totally different everything."

Scores were posted every day until the last day of competition. White and the rest of his fellow competitors went to the Army Birthday Ball not knowing how everyone fared on the last day of events.

"They never posted the last day's scores to leave a little mystery to the whole thing," White said.

When White was announced as the winner of the competition, he said he felt excited, but he also knew that meant he had a greater duty and obligation to his fellow competitors and their units to perform well at the next level of competition.

"Another part of getting announced as the winner is you know you're going to have to go to that next level and represent," White said. "Now, all those people that I just beat and all those units that sent guys to this competition, now I'm representing them at the next level."
White will represent USARPAC at the Department of the Army Best Warrior Competition in Washington D.C. in October.