CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Rains and rough surf with breaking eight-foot waves greeted 21 two-man teams gathered on San Onofre Beach before in the predawn dark May 15 for the start of the annual Recon Challenge.
The competitors carried more than 45 pounds of gear along a hilly course over the next 26 miles, stopping to tackle tests on the fundamentals of reconnaissance including Oopen-ocean and pool swims, weapons accuracy and weapons assembly, radio operations, mapping objects and knots. They were also hit with a memory test, rappelling, water rescues and a double run of the obstacle course during the May 15 challenge.
"It rained all day, it was awesome," Master Gunnery Sgt. Christopher May, assigned to Marine Corps Headquarters, said with a grin. But of the rough ocean start? "Oh, it was miserable. ," he said. "It pounded the hell out of us."
Master Sgt. David Jarvis and Capt Patrick Zuber forged ahead, despite the pounding surf's attempt to take the competitors' will away, Jarivs said. The duo from of 1st Recon Battalion took the top honor as they came in first place with a time of 8:35 — 49 minutes ahead of the second-place team.
2015 Recon Challenge top finishers:
- First place: Master Sgt. David Jarvis and Capt. Patrick Zuber, 1st Recon (running for Cpl. Joseph W. Lyons, KIA Vietnam 1968).
- Second place: Master Sgt. Cory Paskvan and Staff Sgt. Nicholas Barcelona, 2nd Recon (running for Cpl. Jordan Stanton, KIA Afghanistan 2011).
- Third place: Capt. William Wellborn and Sgt. James Coe, 2nd Recon (running for Sgt. Mark Symkowski, KIA Iraq 2006).
The Marines carried on their backs As the clock ticked time throughout the course, each team carried, literally, the name of a fallen recon brother etched on a bright pink air panel draped over their packs. "The idea behind it is to honor the Marines in their community who've given the ultimate sacrifice, in the recon community, our MOS," said Capt. Jason Quinn, executive officer of Basic Reconnaissance Course executive officer.
"It's our brand, it's who we are as a community and the value of our community and the capability we provide to not only the Marine Corps but [Defense Department of Defense] and our country," he Quinn said.
The competition is open to anyone with a recon-specific military occupational specialty who has completed MOS and graduate of the Basic Recon Course. This year's teams included Navy special amphibious recon corpsmen or SARCs and two Army Special Forces soldiers who previously served as were former recon Marines. Rank is set aside, and competitors are on equal footing.
The event, open to the public, brings the Recon community together and, if it continues to grow, will also helps it with recruiting efforts. The seventh annual event, this year is year's Recon Challenge, its seventh running, saw more teams compete than in recent years. Headquarters Marine Corps headquarters sent a video-media crew to cover the event, and organizers hope to expand it Organizers at SOI-West's Advanced Infantry Training Battalion, along with the main sponsor, Marine Recon Foundation and Force Recon Association, hope to finally grow and build the competition into something on par with the Army's popular and long-running Best Ranger Competition, held at Fort Benning, Georgia.
A Marine fires his M4 during obstacle 9 of the 2015 Recon Challenge aboard Camp Pendleton, Calif., May 15.
Photo Credit: Sgt. Allison Beiswanger/Marine Corps
Quinn said the most successful teams are those that communicate about how to tackle the challenges. During one part of the event, for example, competitors have to sink to the bottom of a 15-foot pool, resurface with a beefy, 7-ton truck tire and lift it onto the pool deck.
Jarvis, of the winning team, said it took about all he had to complete that challenge. With his teammate's help, he said they were able to get the tire out of the pool on the second try. Getting through the events requires teams to not only be in pique physical shape, but "to be brilliant in the basics of reconnaissance," Quinn said.
At the closing ceremony, along with bragging rights, the top three teams received paddles as trophies, which are symbolic of recon Marines' amphibious roots. Jarvis and Zuber also each got a Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal, pinned on by SOI-West's commander, Col. Christopher Williams, the commander of School of Infantry-West here.
A group of BRC students from the Basic Recon Course lined up before the crowd, which included families of the fallen men, and belted out the Recon Creed.
Jim McGee, the keynote speaker and Marine recon team leader and Vietnam veteran who served as a Marine recon team leader, said Jim McGee, kept his remarks brief. But front on his mind was a Marine buddy, 19-year-old Cpl. Joseph W. Lyons, whose final battlefield fight and death 37 years ago earned him a posthumous Silver Star medal.
"He trained right here with me at Camp Pendleton," McGee said, "and he was the first person I personally knew in Vietnam who was killed."
Just a few hours earlier, McGee had watched as Lyons' name came across the finish line, on the backs of first-place finishers Jarvis and Zuber.This was Jarvis' fifth time competing – he was deployed the other two times. "I feel like it's part of my duty to continue to inspire the young," he said. "If I can do it, they should be out here proving to themselves to exceed beyond their limitations."
