Pain

Imagine the situation. You are about to embark on a 34 km march, about 7 hours total of walking in the darkness. You are pumped up, full gear on, heart racing in one of those indescribable situations that only soldiers can know.

The first two hours you are on a roll. The night is warm, the moon is beautiful, and you are enjoying the surroundings when slowly, so slowly that at first you only imagine the pain, you begin to feel pain in your heels.Your skin feels like its being scrunched up, then stretched. Rinse and repeat.

Oh no. It is the beginning of blisters. And no, not little blisters with some red and raised skin. Blisters the size of your hand; filled with fluid, blood, G-d knows what. Blisters that are agonizingly painful with every step that you take.

Thank G-d, you make it to the second stop of the march. You wince as you make your way over to the medic of the pluga.

"Hey man, listen. I have got these blisters, can you do something for them?"

"The truth is, I can't really do anything about them. The only thing you can do is to grit your teeth and finish the march or drop out."

"Nothing? Well, how about some pills against pain?"

"Sorry, can't give you those right now".

"Ah, okay."

Now what? Dropping out means you spare yourself an excruciatingly painful march. But then you will have to make up the march at a later point, or even worse in your opinion, on the final march to get your beret, you will march less than your friends and feel like you somehow didn't truly deserve it.

And lets be honest, it is just blisters, right? It isn't like your friend who dropped out with a bum knee or bad back.

The commanders and sergeant are looking at you. They recognize you as someone with a big heart and a lot of morale. Surely you can't let them down. They tell you that this is something normal for infantrymen, just grit your teeth and get on with it, soldier.

Your fellow soldiers are standing around you, sweat pouring off their faces, filling up their canteens. They have just been carrying the light and heavy machine gun, stretchers, communications equipment, and water bottles in addition to their vests. In another 20 km, they will open stretchers and carry two lucky soldiers 4 km in addition to all the gear they lugged. They are silent. If you drop out, they won't say anything. They understand, but still...how can you leave your boys because of...blisters?

So you grit your teeth and continue the march. You think about everything but the pain emanating from your feet. Ex girlfriends, favorite songs, sports, literally anything. Thank G-d, its dark and you are sweating so that your fellow soldiers don't see the tears silently rolling down your face.

6 km, stop, 6 km more, stop. Two and a half hours. The pain has now enveloped everything. It is visceral, the only real thing in this world. It is existence. Every wrong step, every stumble over a unseen rock jolts the pain to the maximum level.

This has become ridiculous. Why should you continue this madness? But you've done 18 km, more than halfway done. If you were going to stop, you should have done it by now. You can't stop now. You have to continue. To prove a point to yourself.

The march resumes and you start to fall behind your fellow soldiers, the pace is outstripping your limping.

So your fellow soldiers start to push you and whisper you to close the gaps.
Yalla, you can do it! You can't let them down so you run to close the gaps. At this point, you can't hide your sniffling, your gasps of pain.

When you get to the next stop, you almost collapse from joy. Only 10 km left.

You are placed next to your sergeant at the very front of the line so that he can ensure that you don't fall behind and stay with the pace. You can't let him know that you have been crying. You are a man, a soldier- who does that?! So you make sure to exhale very loudly with every step to stifle all other sounds.

"Are you okay?", asks the sergeant.

What do you answer? The answer is no, but the sergeant can't do anything for you in any case.

"I have blisters, but I am not giving up".

"Very good. Just grit your teeth and it will pass".

You give thanks to the jackass for telling you something you didn't already know.

Final stop. 6 km left. The lights of your base can dimly be seen around the bend of the hill in front of you. At this point, you have nothing left but one mantra pulsing in your head. Finish.

The march is over. 5 AM. You are practically delirious. You limp through the stretches, the checking of your gear, the shower. You collapse into your bed and pass out.

Welcome to the life of a infantry soldier.

(if anyone has good anti-blister suggestions, please comment to help me out!)