Day Two of the 10th Annual Warrior Competition for international Special Operations Forces teams, held in Jordan, commenced at 07:00 on 1st May with the punishing GUT-CHECK event, writes Bob Morrison.
Intended “to level the playing field” according to Eric the CEO of GovSource, whose company both conceived the challenges and provided the Directing Staff, GUT-CHECK was a long distance event run against the clock with all 40 teams participating in a mass start of 200 competitors (five members from each seven-man team took part). The precise length of the course was not given, but general consensus was that competitors covered about 12 to 14 kilometres from the mass Start Line, on the helipad at the Jordanian Special Operations Force base which adjoins KASOTC, around the quarry complex and down to the Finish Line on one of the shooting ranges.

And they’re off – African, Arab, Asian, European and North American SpecOps teams all participated [© BM]

A little over one hour in and the first Chinese team has raced past the mid-course point ahead of the competion [© BM]
To quote Eric of GovSource as he explained the thinking behind dropping a casualty situation into what otherwise was an off-road endurance race: “In a controlled environment it [fixing an IV] is very easy, but combat is not a controlled environment, it’s a very chaotic environment, so we do our best to simulate a combat scenario.”

The Jordanian Royal Guard was one of the lead teams but the sun was now well up and the thermometer was rising [© BM]
By 09:00 the first of the teams had made it to the Finish Line down on the quarry floor, beating the two hours that the GovSource team required to validate the course. The slowest teams, who in the main were around half the age of the DS validators, took over three hours to finish.

Jordanian Special Unit 1 operative inserts a cannula into a colleague – note water bottle being used as a makeshift pillow [© BM]
By 13:00 on Day 2 the teams needed to have fed and watered themselves and sorted out their kit for the next event, PIPE HITTER, where their shooting skills would now be the primary focus.
Footnote: Some governments insist that the anonymity of SOF and SF personnel is preserved so to be on the safe side we have obscured all operatives’ faces unless they specifically asked us not to.
To be continued…
{ images © Bob Morrison }

US SF at work – the saline drip contained isotonic Ringer’s Solution and during the trek to the Finish it had to be kept above the casualty while staying connected at all times [© BM]

One of the Turkish Jandarma Kommando teams lifts their stretcher casualty – note camo uniform on left is in the new Jandarma pattern [© BM]

Belarus SOF team heading off with stretcher to claim First Place – note the HAIX Black Eagle lightweight combat boots [© BM]

Daysacks were weighed by GovSource DS, witnessed by a judge, to ensure they still contained 20lbs of sand at the Finish Line [© BM]
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