Pomp and Circumstance – the 6TH Annual Warrior Competition’s last day

The 6th Annual Warrior Competition ended today with a massive final challenge, held on the range – the Top Gun Event. Using rifle, shotgun and pistol, contenders went head to head for several hours until just one shooter was left – this year's Top Gun, Sami K. from the Jordanian GID. Khaled H. of the Lebanese Special Forces took 2nd and Askat M. of the Kazakhstan Special Operations Unit took 3rd.  As you can imagine, with over 200 team members watching, participating, shouting encouragement and shrieking curses in multiple languages, it was chaotic. Happily between watchful Jordanian instructors, all the MissionX judges and an implacable Rangemaster things were kept well in hand.

After Top Gun came the award function, with all the fanfare and ceremony you only see in a monarchy. Parachutists jumped from a helicopter with giant flags, there was a silent drill team, bagpipes and camel riders in traditional uniforms from early in Jordan's history…you get the idea. China's “Snow Leopards” took first place for the second year in a row (they took 4th the first time they competed in 2012 so it didn't take them long to climb to the top). Another Chinese team, the Special Operations Unit of the PAPF Sichuan Corps, took 2nd place and the Royal Jordanian Guard took 3rd. The differences in time and points on all 3 was incremental – the competition was very close.

Overall it was a good day – perhaps the funniest thing we observed was when a Jordanian SOF soldier broke the top of their trophy's helmet. One of his teammates looked over at a Chinese competitors seated nearby and asked if the trophy was made in China. The Kazakhs, so stand-offish in the beginning, turned out to be among the friendliest and most effusive competitors there (though one of them stole my hat and wore it the rest of the day). We were invited to come to Kazakhstan and train with them.

Lastly we got a hint of who might be coming next year. We'll tell you more about that soon.

There were lots of SOF operators and special forces from around the world here to compete – We wanted to get a look at all of them at soQ took the perfect picture for it.