GORUCK Challenge Class 433, Washington, DC, March 2, 2013

GORUCK Challenge Class 433, Washington, DC, March 2, 2013 convened at Montrose Park in Georgetown at 0100 hrs. That’s 1:00am for you full time civilians. It would become simultaneously one of the best experiences we had ever taken part in and the worst punishment our bodies had ever endured; and we paid for it…$95 dollars to be exact…and the Cadre kept reminding us of that fact.

The Cadre is the supreme overseer of our group of 26 GORUCK Challenge takers (25 males, and 1 female). For Class 433, the Cadre assigned to us was Cadre Matt, who is an active duty Marine Corps Force Recon corpsman. A corpsman, for you full time civilians, is the Marine Corps and Navy equivalent of an Army Medic. Marine Force Recon is a Special Operations group, much like the Army Special Forces (Green Beret), Navy SEALS, Air Force Pararescue & Combat Controllers, and Army Rangers. They are the badasses of the baddest badasses of the United States military. They are the tip of the spear. As a corpsman, Cadre Matt is highly qualified to provide paramedic services in case we are injured. One of the things Cadre Matt loves to remind us (besides telling us that we paid good money for our misery) is that he is in fact there to hurt us, but not to injure us….there is a difference.

If we are hurt, and suffering, and feel like the tasks required of us seem too much, we can either embrace “The Suck” and “suffer in silence”, or quit. That’s a question Cadre Matt likes to ask often, “Do you want to quit?” Our answer every time was, “NEGATIVE!!!!”

The first things we were introduced to were our rules. The first rule is our backpacks, which contains 4-6 bricks weighing 5 lbs a piece, 3 liters of water, any change of clothes, and any food we brought with us must never touch the ground. The second rule is that our three team weights (a 25 lbs briefcase, a 25 lbs sandbag, and a 40 lbs fire hose) that we took turns carrying, must never touch the ground. The third rule is that our team flag (3’x5’ on a 6’ pole) must never touch the ground. And the fourth and final rule is that we must never jeopardize the safety of the group; safety is paramount.

With the rules laid out before us, next came the introduction to the myriad of punishments that await us if we broke the rules. Just to name a few that are still fresh in my memory (both mental memory and muscle memory) are the bear crawl (hands and feet on the ground, knees off the ground), the crab crawl (like the bear crawl except you face up rather than down), lunges, squats, push-ups, flutter kicks, low crawl, inch worm push-ups (your feet on the shoulder of the teammate behind you), and whatever else the Cadre can think of (and they are resourceful). This introduction lasted an hour, maybe two hours. Time is a relative unknown as we were not allowed to wear watches. Let me remind you this was done starting at 0100 hrs, in the dark, and in the cold. In the first two hours alone we were covered in mud from crawling on the park grounds. I’m pretty sure there were goose poop and maybe dog poop too, but it was dark, so who the hell knows. We press on. It was during this introductory period that I had thoughts of quitting. You think you’re fit, you think you’ve done your job in training and in preparing for this event, but your body will gleefully remind you that you suck. Every muscle in your body tells you that you suck, the frigid night air tells you that you suck, the mud you are covered in tells you that you suck, and the Cadre confirms to you rather frequently that “The Suck” is precisely what this event is designed to make you feel. The Suck is to be our home for the next 10-12 hours and 15-20 miles. Good Livin’.

With the forms of punishment ingrained in muscle memory, we press on toward the creek at Rock Creek Park. It was dark, so we turned on our headlamps. A Team Leader (or TL) was selected at random by the Cadre. That job was his or hers until they fuck up. I think we ended up having maybe four or five Team Leaders that day, but again, who the hell knows, as everything becomes foggy amid the planned chaos. We adopted two heavy wooden logs from the park, nicknamed The SCUDs, to be carried along our journey. We took turns carrying it, and oh, The SCUDs must never touch the ground. At one point in the park, we had to move The SCUDs up a steep hill…we had to bushwack uphill. Since the logs were not allowed to touch the ground we put our bodies between it and the ground as we carry/slide/maneuver/curse the log up.

Fast forward an hour or two, we find ourselves at the Exorcist stairs in Georgetown. It’s the set of stairs from the movie. If you’re not familiar with it, then you need to watch more movies. We box jump up the stairs and either run down the stairs, or crab crawl down the stairs. It’s a timed exercise. Miss the mark, and Cadre Matt tells us to repeat the exercise. I honestly don’t remember how many times we did it. By the time we moved on to the next task, the sun was beginning to rise, which was my clue that it was around 0639 hrs (I checked Weather Channel the day before). The misery was about halfway over.

Our next task was to navigate our way from Georgetown and head South to Theodore Roosevelt Island. President Teddy Roosevelt’s wise tenets about nature, manhood, youth, government, and something else (really, I was kind of a walking zombie then) were chiseled on large stone tablets for us to see, appreciate, and learn from. Look them up online; I highly recommend it. We discard one of the SCUDs. We now have only one log.

From there, we navigate our way to Arlington National Cemetery, and did some more stair exercises along I-395. We were to walk down at our own individual paces, and then box jump up. We were to repeat the exercise 10 times, after which we can sit at the top. I was among the first few to complete the exercise. What happened next is the best thing about GORUCK. Upon realizing that others were only on their sixth hop up (one teammate injured his knee badly, but chose to continue), the rest of us who had completed the exercise went down to them, and continued to do the exercise along with our injured teammate until he completed. We had evolved as a team to the point where The Suck was secondary to our fellow teammates. We are a Team. Cadre Matt was pleased. We began to see less and less of him. He would give the Team Leader our new task, let the TL do his job, and then Cadre would disappear like a friggin Ninja.

Eventually we found our way to the Lincoln Memorial where we did more stair exercises; this time bear crawl up to Abe, and then crab crawl back down. We had our second group photo here. From here we did buddy caries by the Vietnam Memorial, did some running, marched to The White House and had our third group photo. From here I was in a daze. I had almost no idea where we were. I just knew we were moving back in the general direction of our starting point in Montrose Park in Georgetown. The hazy march was filled with taking turns carrying The SCUD, the sandbag, the briefcase, the fire hose, and being dehydrated. I had water, but at some point you just seem to forget to do something common sense in nature, like taking a fucking drink when you’re fucking thirsty. My backpack straps were digging into my raw shoulders now. I have muscles being put to work that I never knew were there before. You’re in pain. You’re in discomfort. You’re in The Suck. There is nothing you can do. The thought of quitting isn’t even there anymore. Very little thought was there anymore. You become one with the pain almost willingly. You have learned to embrace The Suck.

Before we knew it, we were back at Montrose Park. I was carrying the sandbag together with another teammate. Cadre Matt instructed the carriers of the sandbag and carriers of the briefcase to follow him to his truck, where we put them in his truck bed. Goodbye 25 lbs sandbag. Sayonara 25 lbs briefcase. We won’t miss you. Matt then instructed us to get the rest of the team to assemble on the paved trail leading to the creek. There was some confusion whether we should carry the log with us or not. None of us remembered Matt specifically asking for the team to bring it, so we left it behind. It was the wrong choice. March back, retrieve log, and march to the trail. We marched down to the creek where we were told to leave the log. Forever. Good riddance log. And then Matt told us to get completely wet from head to toe in the creek, and then form up at the trail. It was cold. Freezing cold. If you were sleep walking, you were instantly rudely awakened by the freezing creek bath. Once we formed up at the trail, we were told to bear crawl up the hilly trail to where Matt was standing. I dare estimate it was about 50 yards uphill, maybe more.

Shivering, tired, delirious, and borderline hypothermic, I was running out of gas two-thirds of the way up. At some point Cadre Matt was standing over me smiling, asking, “How’d you like the cold bath?”, to which I replied, “REFRESHING!!!” I try to give encouragement to a struggling buddy next to me. And then…..something in my brain snapped…..for no fucking reason. I did a sprinting bear crawl, knees off the ground in perfect form, grunting loudly, biting my teeth, screaming, perfect war face just like Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket, with drool foaming at the mouth. I recall Matt saying something to the effect that I was doing some type of GORUCK porno. He was amused. I reached Cadre Matt at the top of the hill, wiped the drool off my face with my glove, and then walked back down to encourage the rest of my teammates, even helping one by pulling on his ruck on his back. 

Once everyone completed their drenched hypothermic bear crawl, we formed up where we began some 10 hours and 17 miles ago, and we did more lunges as a Team, squats as a Team, push-ups as a Team, inch worm push-ups as a Team, and low crawls. Then, Cadre Matt told us to drop our rucks on the ground. GORUCK Challenge for Class 433 had come to an end. Matt congratulated us on our rare achievement, shook our hands, and presented us with our coveted GORUCK Tough patch, not available for sale anywhere, and can only be earned with blood, sweat, tears, embracing The Suck, and working as a Team. Yes, I said tears. I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t get teary eyed at the end. Maybe just a little.