Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Justin Hardin | Staff Sgt. Tito Collazo, an operations noncommissioned officer with the Mobilization...... read more read more
SAN ANTONIO -- More than 100 service members gathered to participate in the Norwegian foot march conducted by the 1st Battalion, 355 Regiment, 1st Brigade, 95th Training Division, April 15, 2023, at Joint Base San Antonio-Camp Bullies. On the command go, the service members rush across the starting line and establish pace and position.
“The Norwegian foot march is an 18.6-mile march in which the competitors have to carry at least 25lbs of dry weight in military uniform and they have to complete 18.6 mile within the timeframe set within their gender and for their age group” said Capt. Christopher Young, Echo Company Commander 1/355 Regiment 1st Brigade 95th Training Division.
Young encourages the participants to do their best as they pass through, once the last participant cross the start young checks with his medic team and the support teams to ensure that all are prepared in case there are any injuries or participant who withdraw.
“I wanted to something fun, when I joined the Reserves, I wanted to do Soldier stuff, I wanted to do fun things. What’s really cool about this is its challenging, but you actually get something tangible out of it. If you complete this, you’ll get a Marsjmerket which is their actual Norwegian foot march badge” said Young. “You can actually wear this on you AGSU (Army Green Service Uniform) or your ASU (Army Service Uniform) as a foreign badge”.
Of the 126 participants, 20 qualified for the badge and another 10 completed the march but were over the time limit.
“We had a good amount of finishers but it’s pretty common to have a 70% attrition rate’ said Young.
“I think I did it because I thought it would be an exciting challenge something new, I hadn’t done before. I really thought I could. I trained for it, honestly, I just wasn’t prepared I wasn’t prepared for the heat I wasn’t prepared for the incline, but still a good challenge” said Capt. Troy Goossen an Operations Office with the Mobilization Support Brigade( MSB).
When asked most participants state they attempted the march just to see if they could complete it.
“I wanted to complete it honestly , I wanted to see if I could actually make it in the time, I didn’t do that, but I still finished it though” said Sgt. Nathan Thayer a supply specialist with the MSB.
“A lot of people learned a lot about themselves. Some people are going home with badges some people aren’t, they’ll have to go back and train a little bit more. It was an overall really good event and I think a lot of people are excited and happy about it” said Young.
At the closing of the race Young encouraged all who participated try again because there are three badges, Bronze, Silver, and Gold depending on the number of foot marches completed.
The event brought together service members from active-duty Army, Army Reserve, National Guard and Air Force.
| Date Taken: | 04.15.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 04.20.2023 15:38 |
| Story ID: | 443019 |
| Location: | SAN ANTONIO, TX, US |
| Hometown: | BLAIR, NE, US |
| Hometown: | OMAHA, NE, US |
| Web Views: | 4,074 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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