By Melissa Buckley, Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs Office
FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (April 23, 2024) — The 2024 winners of the 17th Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers Best Sapper Competition are Capts. Matthew Cushing and Joseph Palazini, from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky — making history not only as the first team to win the competition twice, but also back-to-back.
The winning duo was named during an award ceremony April 23 in Nutter Field House.
Both Cushing and Palazini serve as company commanders with the 21st Brigade Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
According to Cushing, Best Sapper is a meaningful title that comes with great responsibility.
“I command troops. I have to show them what a Best Sapper looks like, how to become one and how we never stop trying to improve ourselves. That is the biggest reason I am back this year, to try to inspire more Best Sappers.”
Placing second was 1st Lt. Eric Niino and Master Sgt. Ivan Varela, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Moore, Georgia
Third place went to Cadets Samuel Dickerson and Isaiah McNeilly from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.
The competition, which took place April 19 through 23 at Fort Leonard Wood, featured 50, two-man teams that competed in several events, included special steel cutting, mountaineering, a wire obstacle breach, marksmanship, timber cutting techniques, bridge reconnaissance, utilizing handheld mine detectors and a Bangalore breach. In 2005, the Army Engineer Regiment launched the inaugural Best Sapper Competition to showcase the regiment’s elite Sapper leaders.
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About Fort Leonard Wood
Fort Leonard Wood is a thriving and prosperous installation that has evolved from a small basic training post more than 80 years ago to a premier Army Center of Excellence that trains nearly 80,000 military and civilians each year.
Fort Leonard Wood is home to the U.S Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence and three U.S. Army schools: the U.S. Army Engineer School; U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear School; and the U.S. Army Military Police School. In addition to training engineer, CBRN and military police specialties for the Army, Fort Leonard Wood also provides gender-integrated in-processing and Basic Combat Training for new Soldiers.
Fort Leonard Wood also hosts and trains with the largest Marine Corps Detachment and Air Force Squadron on any Army installation as well as a large Navy construction detachment.
More information about Fort Leonard Wood is at: https://home.army.mil/wood/index.php/about/mission