Sgt. James Akinola, who graduated from UMES in 2015 with a bachelor’s in biology, was recently named the 2020 U.S. Army Soldier of the Year. He was on hand this Veterans Day as an Army ambassador for the opening dedication of the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Akinola, a combat medic assigned to the Moncrief Army Health Clinic at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, vied for the honor of Soldier of the Year through the Army’s 19th annual Best Warrior Competition. He bested a field of 10 competitors in challenges “that pushed them to their physical and mental limits.”
To identify not only the most physically fit soldier, but the best overall representative, competitors were tested on “wisdom, tenacity, technical and tactical skills and overall combat readiness.”
Akinola wrote an essay and completed an Army combat fitness test, a weapons range qualification, 12-mile ruck march, warrior tasks and drills before being interviewed before a board of senior enlisted officers.
The announcement was made on October 13 that he earned 2020 Soldier of the Year honors during an in-person presentation at the Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition. There was also a winner among 11 competitors representing noncommissioned officers at the Best Warrior Competition. Sgt. 1st Class Alexander Berger, a Special Forces soldier at Fort Carson, Colorado, was awarded the Noncommissioned Officer of the Year.
A native of Philadelphia, Akinola enlisted in 2017.
Being named this year’s Soldier of the Year earned him a prominent role in the opening ceremonies for the Army’s first museum in its 245 years of “heroes and history.” Admission is free to the museum where some 1,400 artifacts from the Revolutionary War to Afghanistan are on display. CBS news interviewed Akinola on the Veterans Day opening. Visit https://cbsn.ws/36tNBwy.
Gail Stephens, agricultural communications and media associate, School of Agricultural and Natural Sciences, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, 410-621-3850, gcstephens@umes.edu.
