Tom Mani Pfc. Matthew N. Phillips in cammo and full battle rattle. A loader for the Ceremonial Salute Guns, he was named MDW Soldier of the Year for 2008.

Engaged by gunfire and encountering wounded from an infantry unit they came to support, they needed to take charge of a scene of wild confusion. ‘‘That’s what it’s like,” more than one veteran of the Iraq War would say.

But the airlift, assault and cordon and search operation — as well as a later IED-abetted ambush — was all staged to present realistic training opportunities for Soldiers vying for Soldier or NCO of the Year honors for the National Capital Region or Army Materiel Command last week.

This was just a final set of problems on which they could gain additional points after three earlier days of classroom, range and board appearances at Fort A.P. Hill, the Caroline County, Va., training facility, ‘‘where America’s military sharpens its combat edge.”

Some 230 Soldiers converged on Camp Wilcox in the days prior and during the competition to support a multi-command event that decided Soldier and NCO of the Year honors for the Military District of Washington, Intelligence and Security Command, Installation Management Command and Army Materiel Command.

The AMC winners have a straight shot to the Army-level competition at the end of September at Fort Lee, Va.

MDW, IMCOM and INSCOM winners were ranked against each other to determine an overall National Capital Region Soldier and NCO of the Year.

Spc. Zachary Muske, C Co. 2nd MI Battalion, Darmstadt, Germany and Staff Sgt. Eric J. Przybylski, HHC 704th MI Brigade, Fort Meade, Md., both with the Fort Belvoir-based INSCOM, took top honors for the National Capital Region as well as for INSCOM.

Staff Sgt. Robert J. Gordon and Pfc. Chistopher S. Loeffler, the NCO and Soldier of the Year for AMC, also won passage to the all-Army show. Gordon is a trombonist with the AMC Band, while Loeffler is with the Natick Soldier Systems Center HQ Research and Development Detachment.

Spc. Marco G. Garced, U.S. Army Garrison Garmisch, and Sgt. Kevin A. Miller, 209th MP Detachment, Fort Benning, Ga., took Soldier and NCO honors for IMCOM and were likewise named NCR alternates.

Four MDW Soldiers competed for Soldier of the Year and three for NCO of the Year, with the Soldiers from the 3rd. U.S. Infantry (The Old Guard) taking top MDW honors. The MDW NCO of the Year, Sgt. David C. Browne, is a member of the Old Guar’s 3rd Platoon, Company E, 4th Battalion, is an infantry NCO with firing party responsibilities. Pfc. Matthew N. Phillips, who was named MDW Soldier of the Year, is a loader in the Old Guard’s Presidential Salute Gun Battery, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion.

Other MDW contestants included, for Soldier of the Year, Spc. Earl S. Braxton of HHC 12th Aviation Battalion, Air Operations Group; Spc. Spenser Wellman, 212th MP Detachment, Fort Belvoir; and Spc. Wilson Alvarado, 152nd MP Platoon, Fort Hamilton, N.Y.

The NCO of the Year candidates from MDW also included Sgt. Anthony W. Moll, a dog handler with the 241st MP Company, Fort Meade, and Sgt. Yusha E. Thomas, an MP with the 152nd MP Det., Fort Hamilton.

‘‘Just by being here shows that you are a winner,” IMCOM Command Sgt. Major John M. Gaines Jr. told competitors as results were announced at the July 17 steak and ribs brunch cooked by the contingent of Old Guard cooks who had kept everyone fed with hot meals for breakfast and dinner during the competition.

MDW J1 Sgt. Maj. Brian Jones, who had kept track of the scoring and tabulation for the various events, noted that the spread among scores was close, particularly among those that captured the top spots for their commands. With results of a 100-point ‘‘mystery event” excluded from the tabulation, the top scores, all for NCOs, were in the low 400s on the resulting 500-point scale. ‘‘The Soldier of the Year scores ranged from 360.5 to 374.5 for the top three finishers.”

No competitor was consistently among the top finishers in each of the events, but there were several where a top score was able to put distance on other competitors.

Land navigation, conducted on the hilly and heavily wooded course across the road from Camp Wilcox, showed spreads from zero to 50 points, with most competitors finding only one or two of the four locations used the current GPS system, the Dagger. Pryzbylski and Miller were the only two getting all 50 points in the event.

One competitor suffered heat exhaustion during the course and was forced to withdraw from the competition, one of six Soldiers who did not complete all events.

The panels of sergeants major that separately examined the NCO and Soldier candidates could grant up to 150 points on their presentation, both appearance and response to a battery of questions that were put to them. Fewer than 35 points separated the top and bottom scores. Similarly, nobody gained more than 14 points on anyone else in the written exam and essay portion that began the competition the day of arrival on Sunday when NCOs were asked to consider the optempo in Iraq and Afghanistan in connection with the Warriors Creed and Soldiers wrote their thoughts on the new Army Class A uniform.

While some candidates would have scored off the standard charts on the Army Physical Fitness Test, a 300 PT score was good for the maximum 50 points — which six candidates achieved. Scores of 255-257 earned half of the points, a level achieved by most of the competitors.

Hands-on warrior task events took place throughout the third and fourth days of competition. The nine events were each worth 10 or 15 points. Preparing the Single Channel Ground to Air Radio Set for operation and preparing a range card for a machine gun were the two events for which more points were allotted.

Three of the warrior tasks came amid the crush of activity taking place during execution of ‘‘Operation Utopian Monicker,” the small-group training that capped the competition, and few had difficulty getting the points allowed for the events – enforcing media ground rules, processing captured enemy materiel and requesting medical evaluation.

Much that took place turned out to be ungraded — just something to be gone through. That was the case for crowd control activities at ‘‘Rocky Mout,” the Objective Bravo, likewise for the drill on the aircraft entering and exiting, the 10 to 12 miles of tactical movement that took place with several instances of enemy contact. It was also true for the mystery task, a setup where parts of four different weapons were intermingled on four tables in a large room with the challenge to assemble them.

‘‘It was fun to see their faces when we turned off the lights,” J3 planner Enoch Godbolt said.

‘‘Our aim was to mirror events in the Sergeant Major of the Army competition as well as what’s happening in theater,” Sgt. Maj. Wayne Miller, the J3 sergeant major in overall control of the event.

With MDW as the host and other commands contributing their expertise and other resources, the planning cell conducted site visits and in-process reviews ‘‘to validate what we wanted to do,” Miller said. ‘‘Everyone helped.”

‘‘The mobile medics on gators and the food and drink provided by AMC were major” in mitigating the possible risks, Miller noted. The process of such ‘‘composite risk assessments” were part of the NCO board chaired by MDW Command Sgt. Maj. Raymond P. Houston, but missed by many.

MDW will honor its Soldier and NCO of the Year Aug. 11 at Conmy Hall, Fort Myer, Va.