FORT HARRISON — For Staff Sgt. Cody Warner, Staff Sgt. Mitchell Clark, Sgt. Tyler Olson, and Spc. Kendon Young, one final ride at Fort Harrison was more than another trip in an M1 Abrams tank. It was one last chance to sit in the same places, work as a crew and close out a chapter.
The four soldiers recently represented Montana at the Sullivan Cup in Fort Benning, Georgia, one of the Army’s premier tank crew competitions. They finished third overall and were the top National Guard crew in the competition.
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“For years, we’ve talked about sending a team to the Sullivan Cup, and it’s just never happened,” Warner said. “This year, we had enough momentum, and with the end of tanks, I don’t think there’s a better way we could have gone out overall.”
Warner expressed how the crew is grateful to the Montana Army National Guard, their employers and their families for giving them the opportunity and support to compete at that level.
The timing made the finish even more meaningful.
The crew returned home as the 1st Battalion, 163rd Cavalry Regiment was entering a major transition. The battalion has since been redesignated as the 1st Battalion, 163rd Infantry Regiment, marking its move toward a lighter, more mobile infantry mission.
For soldiers who spent years training on tanks, the shift is not just a change in equipment.
“We feel pretty heartbroken,” Warner said. “We are very passionate about what we do and the job that we do. We’ve been doing this job for a pretty long time.”
Warner has been a tanker for 11 years. Clark has spent 12 years working on tanks, including time in the Marine Corps before joining the Montana National Guard. Olson has been a tanker for just over four years, and Young for about three years.
For Clark, this is the second time he has watched a tank mission disappear.
“I was part of the Marine Corps and their divestment of tanks,” Clark said. “And I came over to the Montana National Guard to, once again, be on tanks and found a lot of the same kind of brotherhood.”
He said being back on tanks gave him a familiar platform and a familiar culture.
“It hurts as much the second time watching them go away,” Clark said.
Olson said becoming a tanker was not something he had mapped out when he joined the Army National Guard. At the time, he said, he was looking for help paying for college.
“When I called the recruiter, I didn’t know what job I wanted,” Olson said. “And they said, tanks are in the state. I barely knew what a tank was at that point.”
That changed quickly.
“First time I was on a tank, first time seeing that gunfire, I was in love with it,” Olson said.
That connection to the tank is also tied to the people inside it.
Warner served as the tank commander, Clark as the gunner, Olson as the loader and Young as the driver. Each role is different, but inside the tank, each one depends on the others.
Warner said tank crews are built differently because of how closely they have to work.
“Tanks are a lot different than other jobs in the military,” Warner said. “You’re kind of stuck in a very small space with people for a pretty long time. So, you get to know each other really well.”
He said that closeness helped the crew understand each other’s strengths during training and competition.
“Every person on this crew brings something to the table that nobody else does,” Warner said. “Despite what the little two-by-two Velcro says on your chest, we all bring something to the table that nobody else has.”
Clark said that is especially clear during live-fire events, when the crew has to move, communicate and react as one.
“The four of us come together as one crew to perform our absolute best,” Clark said. “It’s just really cool to be able to rely on each other to accomplish that task. You can’t really find it anywhere else.”
That made the final ride at Fort Harrison feel less like another training day and more like a closing scene.
The tank moved across the ground with the same sound and weight it always had. But this time, it carried a crew that knew the ride was one of the last.
“We’re excited to share at least this little bit of tanking with the rest of the community and take everybody along for a ride,” said Clark. “See at least a sliver of what it can be like.”
For the crew, the final ride was a chance to say goodbye to a machine, a mission and a way of serving that brought them together.
For Montana, it was one more moment in an armored history now being carried forward by the soldiers who lived it.
