The Army and Running

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

I need to exercise, and do not have a problem with that. Although some aspects of my current physical state put some limits on what I can and cannot do compared to when I was younger.

One of the things I have always, always, ALWAYS hated to do was run. I had no problem swimming a mile or so, no matter how repetitive it was (and had worked up to being able to swim two miles non stop without really being bothered), but running any distance is something I have always hated. (Although, curiously, I would walk miles and miles without really even thinking about it, literally going on a 12 mile walk every weekend of the last three years I was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, for example.)

But running was a big thing in the Army, particularly when you were in the infantry. Whole posts would sometimes shut down for "division fun runs".

I hated running.

I hated it even more in formation due to the constant slowing and speeding of the pace as advanced units bunched up and then spread back out again.

I miss (somewhat) being able to do it (I first got severe shin-splits, and later my knees went bad, so running is absolutely out of the picture for me), but I do not miss doing it (if you get my meaning).

But run often enough, and it can become an infection.

While I was in Korea I was once faced with a day where I really had nothing to do. Boredom overtook me, so what did I do?

I "ran the hill" . . . backwards.

Normally "running the hill" from Camp Hovey in those days consisted of going out the South Gate, running through the village outside the gate and then up the grade to the top of a hill (a little less than the first mile of about a five or six mile run). Once over the crest, you pretty much coasted (down hill, and then on relatively flat level ground) for the remaining four or five miles, running through Tong du Chon (the main town outside of Main Post, i.e., Camp Casey), before entering the post through the main gate, "running to the flag pole" in front of Division Headquarters, then departing Casey to go back to Hovey, reentering Hovey through its North Gate (if I am remembering the layouts of the gates properly).

I started running that day, and at first decided to just go to the Flag Pole (run from Hovey on that relatively level ground to division HQ in Casey), but when I reached the flag pole, I just kept going, running out to Tong du Chon, down the road, and then took "The Hill" from the reverse side (after having already run four or five miles).

I am not claiming I set any track records, or did anything really super, but it showed the kind of shape the Army had gotten me into that I did that run, and the kind of mentality the Army's running habit can get you into that I did that run, despite the fact that I hated running, simply because I was bored.