An 18.6-mile foot march, made at night, was one of the events that decided the U.S. Army’s 2026 Best Squad. The title went to a five-soldier squad from the 75th Ranger Regiment, competing for U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), after a competition held at Fort Benning, Ga., Sept. 11-19, 2026. The Army announced the result Oct. 12, 2026.
Two of the squad’s members also took the Army’s individual titles for the year. Staff Sgt. Colin Doyle, the squad leader, was named NCO of the Year, and Cpl. Michael Shield was named Soldier of the Year. (The article’s text gives Shield’s rank as corporal; its photo captions identify him as a sergeant.) Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael R. Weimer presented all three honors during a ceremony at the Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition.
The results were published in an Oct. 12 army.mil article by Staff Sgt. Justin Stafford. It says 11 squads, each representing its major Army command, competed at Fort Benning, and that “USASOC’s five-Soldier squad from the 75th Ranger Regiment earned the 2026 Best Squad title.”
Nine days at Fort Benning
According to the Oct. 12 article, the competition included a formal board, fitness assessments, weapons qualification and familiarization lanes, the 18.6-mile night foot march, obstacle courses, combat water survival training and firing an M1A2 Abrams tank. It closed with a fitness challenge at Fort Benning Community Day.
The Army framed the event as a measure of “technical and tactical proficiency” and of the ability to operate “as disciplined and cohesive teams,” and it said the competitors “epitomized standards, discipline, grit and lethality together.” After Fort Benning, the squads traveled to the National Capital Region, visited Arlington National Cemetery, ran the Army Ten-Miler and joined a gathering with the Sergeant Major of the Army before the AUSA events, per army.mil.
Doyle described the Rangers’ approach in plain terms. “The 75th Ranger Regiment is a one-of-a-kind unit,” he said in the Army’s article. “We simply show up to work every day focused on marksmanship, small unit tactics, medical training and mobility.”
Shield tied the competition to readiness. “The Army Best Squad Competition is important because it shows where the readiness of the different commands is at across the entire Army,” he said. “And on top of that, competition is a huge part of the Army. And who doesn’t want to be first?”
The road from Fort Bragg
The squad earned its place at the Army level in August. An Aug. 10, 2026 army.mil article by Capt. Derek Zuchowski reported that a five-man 75th Ranger Regiment team won the USASOC Best Squad Competition, held Aug. 3-7 at Fort Bragg, N.C., against seven other USASOC teams. Photo captions with that article listed the Army-level competition for Sept. 11-19, 2026, the dates the squad then competed at Fort Benning.
That article named the USASOC-winning squad as Staff Sgt. Colin Doyle, the squad leader; Sgt. William Masters; Cpl. Michael Shield; Spc. William Schaeffer; and Spc. Marshall Garren. The Oct. 12 announcement names only Doyle and Shield.
“It is a team competition, and the knowledge, skills, and abilities my team brought to the table was awe-inspiring,” Shield said after the August win, in the Army’s account. Masters said of the other USASOC competitors: “They were right there in the fight with us.”
From Fort Bragg in August, the regiment’s squad went on to finish first among the 11 at Fort Benning in September. The Army’s Oct. 12 article records Doyle and Shield as its 2026 NCO and Soldier of the Year, alongside the squad’s Best Squad title.
Top image: A soldier on the obstacle course at the 2025 U.S. Army Central Best Squad Competition. The 2026 Army-level competition is not shown. Image Credit: Staff Sgt. James Bolen / U.S. Army National Guard — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons