One of the toughest challenges an engineer Soldier, or sapper, could ever have is vying in and winning the Best Sapper Competition-which in 2010 was a six-day, three-phase event at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, covering the full spectrum of engineer operations and infantry tasks. Moving more than 50 miles on foot, the sappers were on nearly continuous operations, with little "down time" between events that ran the gamut of physical and mental challenges. The competition began with two-person teams performing the most repetitions possible of push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups in 15 minutes-five minutes in each category-then continued with sappers running more than four miles in Army combat uniform and interceptor body armor vest and carrying a dummy M4 carbine.
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