"Do you suppose they will choose to make war against lean, solid dogs rather than against fat and tender sheep?"
Xenophon of Athens was a philosopher but no soft-handed coffeehouse bloviator. A student of Socrates, in 401 BC Xenophon enlisted in a mercenary army setting out to topple the sovereign of the Persian Empire. After their commander was killed, the fighting philosopher held the routed army together and led them into the Caucusus Mountains on... Continue Reading →
I met The Jolly Irishman minutes into my first GORUCK event, at kissing distance. We were all told to pair up: one person would bear walk across the beach and tow the other, who lay supine and clutched him around the neck. I ended up as a “top” with Irish as my “bottom.” Not having... Continue Reading →
Find parts 1 and 2 here and here. I only thought about quitting once, when I fell down a storm sewer. I’d climbed a truly evil hill of densely packed million-dollar crackerbox houses, past homeowners leaving to go to the beach. One of them actually wore a t-shirt saying something like “Rucking is fun!” I... Continue Reading →
Click here for Part I, "Soiled But Unsullied." GORUCK sometimes calls the Star Course their hardest event. I doubt that very much, but this was the toughest I've done. I expected that after my surprisingly grueling training hike, but I was still surprised by the added burden of route-finding and the premium put on strategy... Continue Reading →
“Amazing!” I thought. “If you piss yourself in black running tights, it just looks like sweat!” At least to the casual observer. I was hobbling at top speed through a raunchy part of the Mission district that could have been in a documentary called Dirty Harry’s San Francisco, and fully a quarter of the men there... Continue Reading →
To prep for the (in)famous Star Course, I tried a 42-mile ruck march. I'd read one man's AAR suggesting that in training you aim for 40 miles (64km) in something close to 10 hours, and on paper that sounded almost reasonable. It's only 15 minutes per mile, right? Heck, I've motored along at that speed... Continue Reading →