Hello everyone, hope you are having a great Thanksgiving! Today in Brunssum, The Netherlands players from my battalion and I played in the Annual Turkey Bowl flag football game. Our opponents were the Air Force who are stationed at Geilenkirchen, Germany and they have won this game the past 5 years. I played in last year's game and we lost 2-0 which was very disappointing. This year we vowed that we would not lose and bring the coveted Army/Air Force helmet back to AFNORTH Battalion.

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In my continuing series on the Army Values, today I am talking about Selfless Service. To me this me giving yourself to the Army and if the mission comes first above all else. The Army mission has to come first, that is what you joined for and it has to be accomplished, you will have to take care of Soldiers and sometimes you will have to sacrifice your needs to make it happen. There are times that it would be easy just to worry about yourself, however we are a team and there is no

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I am a little late on blogging about this being that the briefing was on 22 July, but here it is. Switzerland is a member of the Partnership for Peace, and they have established an NCO school in Lucerne, Switzerland. They run a basic course (WLC equivalent), an Intermediate Course (ALC equivalent), and a Senior Course (SLC equivalent) and all of these are designed for NATO NCOs, mostly from other nationalities but US NCOs can attend as well. At the end of tier two week course they have a

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Continuing with my Army Values series today I am talking about Respect, respect to me means being respectful to your seniors, your peers, subordinates and the Army. Being respectful means listening and paying people the proper courtesy even if you do not like the person or the mission. Many times, you hear that you do not have the person, but you must respect the rank, and this is true. The Army's says Respect is treat people as they should be treated. In the Soldier's Code, we

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The USANATO Brigade (my brigade) was chosen to be one of the test units for the new Army Physical Readiness Test (APRT), so this past week in Brunssum we gave and took the APRT to about 25 personnel. This new test is very interesting and we have found it be very different than the current Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT). For instance the the standing long jump is more of a technique event knowing how to use you legs and jumping from the balls of your feet is something you need to learn to

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Continuing my blog series on the seven Army Values, I will now talk about Duty, the Army defines it as to Fulfill your obligations. Doing your duty means more than carrying out your assigned tasks. Duty means being able to accomplish tasks as part of a team. The work of the U.S. Army is a complex combination of missions, tasks and responsibilities — all in constant motion. Our work entails building one assignment onto another. You fulfill your obligations as a part of your unit

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Hello, I am doing a series of blogs in which I talk about each of the seven Army Values, what they should mean and what they mean to me. Obviously the first one I am going to talk about is Loyalty. The Army definition is- Bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit and other Soldiers. Bearing true faith and allegiance is a matter of believing in and devoting yourself to something or someone. A loyal Soldier is one who supports the leadership and stands

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Hello to everyone, the past month our senior leadership has been briefing us and talking about the Army Values and how NCOs need to go back to the basics. At first I was a little confused and was not sure exactly what they were trying to say. However, the more I think about it and I have thought about it a lot, I believe they are right. Yes, we all know there are seven Army Values and that we are supposed to live by them and most us do. But, do we all really know what each one of them mean

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Hi again, today I will be talking about the USANATO Brigade's Ultimate Warrior Competition also known as the Soldier and NCO of the Year. This is the second year that they have ran this training and competition and this year they also coupled it with the CDR/1SG Summit. The Ultimate Warrior competition started with nine Soldiers and ended with the 2 winners, 1 NCO and 1 Soldier. This competition was very hard, the first 4 days were spent with the competitors going through training and the

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I have seven personnel assigned to my company that work in Munster, Germany for the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps (NRDC), this is an international unit that has about 450 international Soldiers assigned to it. It is made up of personnel from several countries, the US, Poland, Germany, Turkey, Norway, Italy, and Greece to name a few. Every year in early June they have family day in which personnel from each country set up booths with themes and make their native foods and put out information

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