Rangers sweep the Army’s Best Squad and Best Soldier awards

Five Army Rangers won all three awards in the 2026 Best Squad competition, a second clean sweep of the event by the Rangers in the last three events. 

Cpl. Michael Shield was named the Army’s Soldier of the Year, and Staff Sgt. Colin Doyle as the Army’s non-commissioned officer of the year.

The two were members of a five-man squad from the 3rd Ranger Battalion at Fort Benning, Georgia, that won the service’s Best Squad competition, beating 12 others from major commands. The other members were Sgt. William Masters, Spc. William Schaeffer, and Spc. Marshall Garren.

The five were announced Monday as the 2026 winners by Sgt. Major of the Army Michael Weimer at the annual Association of the U.S. Army convention in Washington. 

The Rangers beat teams from 11 other major Army commands in a week-long competition in September, with a litany of events that included timed ruck marches, marksmanship and weapons handling, medical scenarios and interviews with review boards

The team from 3rd Ranger Battalion qualified for the competition after being named the Army Special Operations Command top squad a month earlier.

The 2025 Best Squad competition was cancelled due to a government shutdown, but Rangers swept all three awards in 2023 and won the Best Squad in 2022. A team from Army Pacific won in 2024.