The Army Materiel Command’s Best Soldier and Best Non-Commissioned Officer of the Year are both from headquarters, located right here in Huntsville. So what do the winners do when they are not competing for these coveted titles? They are members of the AMC band.

Specialist Adam Walton and Staff Sergeant Jeremy Baharloui are both members of the 389th Army Band at Redstone and both are percussionists. The pair competed, representing headquarters, against numerous other soldiers and NCO’s from multiple AMC organizations during the three-day event at Camp Atterbury, Indiana.

"When you were tired, you continued to push yourselves. When things were tough, you did not give up,” said AMC Command Sergeant Major James Sims before announcing the winners.

The grueling competition tests the soldiers both physically and mentally in 28 different events and includes physical fitness tests, firing ranges, and land navigation. There is also a 12-mile ruck march and a formal military board where competitors were questioned by six Command Sergeants Major.

Staff Sergeant Jeremy Baharloui actually found out that he was going to be in the competition two weeks before it took place, when the original competitor was unable to compete due to medical reasons.

“This competition proved that between myself and Specialist Walton that musicians can handle the tasks at hand and conquer them,” said Baharloui after both he and Walton were named winners. “Just living the Army warrior ethos, that pushed me when I was sore, hurting, wanting to quit, I said no I got to take it to the next event, take it one event at a time. You take the bad and the good and average it out and hopefully you come out the winner.”

We spoke to Specialist Walton before the event, as he was preparing for the competition. You can view that story here. After the win he spoke about how proud he was to be representing the organization in the Department of the Army competition which is coming up in October.

“It means a lot to me. To be picked to represent anybody on their behalf is a big deal and I just don’t want to let anybody down.”

The DA Best Warrior Competition is scheduled for Oct. 4-12 in Virginia. The winners will be honored at the Association of the US Army Annual meeting in Washington DC.

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