100 miles walkabout in 4 days, piece of cake for a bloke with no toenails.

Last July I teamed up with 17 other jokers from Germany, and we hiked with Army boots, backpack and BDU's, 100 miles in 4 days. This is no joke. 50,000 civilians, (mostly Dutch) and 5,000 soldiers from 22 countries, (mostly crazy). This was like the "Tour de France" of walking. This for a country renowned for their biking. If you can imagine wall to wall people stretching for 5 miles, and villages, with music blaring, Majors with medals, kids with autograph books and calling out souvenirs?. It was frankly un-believable and fun. We started out on Saturday morning in an old school bus and drove 5 hours to Nijmegin Holland. We pulled up at a Dutch Army base, and unloaded our gear. The "tents" were moulded plastic buildings with wooden floors and bunkbeds. There was a large "building" for the live band and bar, a internet cafe, hot showers and a huge eating hall. The first day we went out and caught a train for Amsterdam. Not a bad place, great architecture, and canals. The next day was the official start day, although we wouldn't officially begin until 0400 Monday morning. A bunch of us got "Voluntold" to represent the USA at the official ceremonies. No joke it was like the flaming Olympics. People parachuting in, cannons and fireworks. Some royal announcing the start, and lots of people. The Soldiers were all dressed up in traditional costumes and highstepped the military band as we walked in.
Back at home we went over to the Dutch medical tent, where Dutch Medics fed us salty licorice candy, hot apple cider and bandaged our feet in preparation of the hard slog ahead.
I had a young medic called Anita work for about an hour laying thin strips of medical tape in fine rows as she slowly and efficiently taped up my hoofs. Believe it or not I had no blisters at all where the tape was laid. I went back the third day as well for a re taping, and had a few small blisters underneath each big toe, but not too bad if you got used to the scrunched-up-gladwrap-feel" as you walked. For extra measure I wrapped my feet up with coban, and laid foam tape on the ball part of each foot. I wore thick black socks, and Airforce high top boots. With a bunch of motrin to reduce swelling and a nightcap of beer we tucked it in for the night. We woke up to blaring music. A hard rock song blaring out" Get up! Get out! You better get out of bed!.. This is your wake-up call!" Even now the song gives me chills. We had made sure that our back-packs were the correct weight the day before, a whole 10.5 kilograms (24 pounds to the un metricated). I added jerky, a camel back of gatorade, and several thick Danish Sandwiches which was the only food offered, but not bad either. I loaded mine with great slices of cheese, nutella, liverwurst and salami. (not all on the same sandwich). SSG S, our leader and doing his third Nijmegin, led us out the gate between about 600 Bagpiping Canadians and 20 chanting Welshmen, singing 'We love our Snuffy, Snuffy Snuffy Sheep". SSg S, had us going with a series of Army cadences, booming out songs that we happilily chanted back as we moved to the starting line to join up with the 50,000 civilians. Later as the day and days progressed, we even picked up cadence "groupies" as our little band of 18 (and later 17) soldiers grew to about 100 with mostly civilians shouting cadences back with us as we marched along. We crossed many bridges including several from the "Market Garden" Battlefield of WW2, later made into the movie "A Bridge too far". There were several monuments and museums in the area, which a few of us actually visited on our day off. Another thing we loaded up on, was candy and souveniers, swapping US flags with those of soldiers from other countries as we marched by. I traded a few extra army stuff also, including a jacket for a knife, and several badges. As you can tell, this trip was a lot of fun and well worth the hundreds of K's and several months of preparation before hand. I enjoyed all the people we met, and especially the other members of our team. I would love to come back again in the future, but my wife says no way!. I lost all my toenails in the days that followed, except for my big toes, but was doing PT the following Monday. I hope you like all the pictures. For more go to my links section and check out my photos.
Enjoy
SSG Oz