Phew, my NCO march is over and I'm almost ready to be promoted to medical corporal. I was a little dissapointed it was only about 35 klicks (+ 8 "leader tasks" during the march) according to my polar watch, but I gotta say that Soupy, you were right; your feet will simply get destroyed in the service. Today it was fun to walk on the hall and watch in the tupa's, you saw so many people with their feet full of blisters and cuts looking very unconfortable. Many had also abrasions on their body, because we had to carry so much stuff. Body armor and battle vest alone weighted around 8 kilos (without the plates) and then you have the backpack, which was ridicilously overfilled. It was around 12 kilos with the boots hanging outside of it. I myself had 5 liters of water on the go, and then you have your basic stuff, like helmet and assault rifle. So over 30 kilos (or about 70lbs) of stuff I (and everybody else) had to carry during the march.
I was very fotunate to march with a really good group, we joked around and roasted each other the whole march + we got back to our camp just after midnight, so we had a lot of time to sleep. One group from the staff company got back 15 minutes after I woke up in the morning. They looked sooo unwell and broken.
I'm very thrilled that the 2/15 batch is going home in just 11 days and after that we'll be the leaders around here. In Finland we have this saying, "tit slapping". That describes my responsivilities as a medical NCO in my unit. And I love it.