“I wanted to fundamentally change my life,” Krauland said. He resisted the gravitational pull toward a career as an officer that could put him permanently back in an office. He studied Mandarin at the elite language school of the Department of Defense. To his parents’ surprise, he enlisted in the Army, in large part because of the control it gave him in choosing the job specialty he wanted. “I feel like if we have a chance on this earth, I don’t want to spend it in the same room for 20 years,” Krauland said. He described it as his quarter-life crisis. I would go to work from nine to five every day, go to the same office, see the same screen, print the same reports, you know, and I felt like my life was going nowhere. “It was fundamentally unsatisfactory,” Kraruland said. It was a stable job, well paid and interesting enough. “I was like, ‘I just have to pay the bills.’Įventually, he traded the life of an itinerant hobo for the stability of a corporate job at Volkswagon as a data analyst. “I moved there to scale and actually worked at Whole Foods for about seven months,” Krauland said. He graduated with an economics degree from a liberal arts school in the Pacific Northwest, “which is decidedly no a military school, ”he said.Īn avid mountain climber, Krauland moved first to Salt Lake City, and then to Chattanooga, Tennessee, specifically to access his world-class climbing opportunities among its abundant sandstone cliffs. Raised in Grand Junction, Colorado, by generally progressive parents, the Military was never discussed as an option. Krauland’s path to the army was unconventional. “I wanted to lean towards that kind of extreme” Army photo USA By Specialist Mario Hernández López) Army Pacific Command, walks through a field during the Army’s Best Warrior Competition at Fort Knox, Kentucky on Octo(U.S. Adam Krauland, a cryptology analyst representing the U.S. The challenges were compounded by very little sleep, just a few hours a night. “Suddenly, the tear gas was flying out,” he said. Throughout, competitors had to deal with unexpected curveballs that put their quick thinking skills to the test. “We perform various tasks and missions, as if we were in the field,” Krauland said. There were physical fitness tests, trivia on military history and protocols, firearm drills, and a “soldier skills” component. He advanced through parish competitions and eventually faced 11 other high-performance NCOs during three-day field exercises at Kentucky’s Fort Knox earlier this month. The competition is extracurricular, something Krauland became interested in two years ago and largely pursued outside of his day-to-day duties. Justin Earnhart, who lives in Texas, won the Best Soldier award.
Airborne cryptologic linguist free#
We have all worked a lot in our free time to study, shoot, exercise, “Krauland said during an interview at a cafeteria on the base. He works as a cryptologic linguist specializing in Mandarin, an intelligence function that deciphers foreign communications in the field. Adam Krauland, stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage. The best NCO in the Army is the 30-year-old Staff Sergeant. It is a prestigious distinction in the Army, which brings a promotion and a year of commitments as a representative of the armed forces.
Of the hundreds that enter, two winners emerge: the best soldier and the best NCO. But with much more deprivation of sleep and live ammunition.
Airborne cryptologic linguist series#
(Emily Mesner / DNA)Įach year, troops from around the world compete against each other in the Army’s “Best Warrior” competition, a series of mental and physical challenges that is something of a martial crossover between “Jeopardy!” and “American Ninja Warrior”. Krauland won the 2021 US Army Best Warrior Competition. Adam Krauland, a US Army cryptology analyst, Photographed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage on Friday, October 29, 2021.
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