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2025 European Missile Defender of the Year

May 16, 2025
2025 European Missile Defender of the Year Awardees

Last week, we celebrated our 8th European Missile Defender of the Year in Warsaw, Poland, which was hosted by Poland and MDAA on Victory Day, May 8, 2025. We recognize the sacrifices commemorated at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, which forever symbolizes Poland’s ultimate sacrifice for freedom. We remain mindful of the complexities surrounding Victory Day, which is widely celebrated in Western Europe but holds a different meaning for many Eastern European NATO nations. For them, this date marks the beginning of Soviet occupation that lasted over 40 years following the Allied victory in World War II. The MDAA Poland Regional Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Coalitions Conference serves as a vital platform to reaffirm our shared commitment to freedom and to deter future invasion or occupation through strengthened regional collaboration and readiness. This collective effort is made possible by the dedication and determination of the next generation of IAMD leaders. We took time to honor our best of the best in Integrated Air and Missile Defense for Europe over the past year on May 8th in Warsaw, Poland.  

Our tradition of recognizing our best in this critical mission runs deep, embedded in a history of integrity and honor in IAMD. The Missile Defender of the Year (MDOY) Award ceremony began in January 2011 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first operational Patriot missile intercept on January 18, 1991. Since then, MDAA has honored and awarded 995 Awardees from 22 different nations at 85 total Defender of the Year Award ceremonies. This prestigious recognition has celebrated awardees from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain, South Korea, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Events have been hosted by eight countries: Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.   

Our 8 European Missile Defender of the Year events have specifically honored 63 awardees across nine ceremonies, beginning with the inaugural event on April 4, 2014, in Kaiserslautern, Germany, coinciding with NATO’s 65th anniversary. Subsequent ceremonies continued in Kaiserslautern (2015), Ramstein (2016), Cologne (2017, co-hosted by the German Luftwaffe), Berlin (2018, co-hosted by the German Navy), and Breda, Netherlands (2023, co-hosted by the Royal Dutch Air Force). The 2024 European Missile Defender of the Year was held here in Warsaw. Following this year’s Missile Defender of the Year Awards ceremony, the Polish Military Orchestra from Radom performed, providing a powerful and moving tribute to the excellence and dedication of the awardees. Last week’s Missile Defender of the Year ceremony was fully integrated with the 2025 Regional IAMD Coalitions Conference and hosted in collaboration with the Military University of Technology to honor distinguished missile defenders from the European NATO Allies and Partners.   

We are honored to present our 2025 European Missile Defenders of the Year 

Lt Col Derk Zielman – NATO, AIRCOM BMD 
CWO Luc De Hooglander – Netherlands, Ground-Based Air Defense Command 
Col Shawn Beskar – United States Air Force, Missile Defense Agency 
1LT Aidan Buzo, SSG Courtney Caudill, and CPL Mauricio Calonje – United States Army, 10th AAMDC, 5/7 ADA ICC Crew, First to Fire Competition Winners 
CPT Stephen Grazcza – United States Army, 10th AAMDC 
MSgt Lance J. Bowes – United States USAFE – AFAFRICA, Cyber Defense Operations Craftsman, Systems Operations 
COL Timothy R. Shaffer – United States Army, Lifetime Achievement Awardee, Joint Functional Component Command -Integrated Missile Defense 
LTC Daniel Pyza – Poland, Operations Branch, Department of Air and Missile Defence, Inspectorate of the Armed Forces, General Command of the Polish Armed Forces.

[Not Pictured]

PVT Alexander Pamchuk – Ukraine, Land Forces Air Defense 

Lt Marko Pyrizhok – Ukraine, Land Forces Air Defense 

Col Dennis Tryshin – Ukraine, Land Forces Air Defense 

Winners associate with winners to win! 

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MDAA’s mission is to make the world safer by advocating for the development and deployment of missile defense systems to defend the United States, its armed forces, and its allies against missile threats.

MDAA is the only organization in existence whose primary mission is to educate the American public about missile defense issues and to recruit, organize, and mobilize proponents to advocate for the critical need of missile defense. We are a non-partisan membership-based and membership-funded organization that does not advocate on behalf of any specific system, technology, architecture or entity.

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