Martha: FTX

FTX, or field training exersizes, (because the military can't always spell) is two and a half days of outside fun in the freezing cold mixed with long ruck marches and war games. It's nothing to count down to, but usually you get some kind of stories out of it, and usually they're pretty fun (after, not during). In that time, between trying to make an MRE into something edible and attempting to stay awake during security, which we seem to constantly be in, you learn to appreciate things like sun, trees, soft ground, anything that isn't prickly bushes of the large variety. You get to see untamed beauty, and even though you're only a few miles away from civilization, you forget that when you can't hear or see it. There's more space, more place, more in the way of freedom despite the fact that every part of of your day is controlled down to the second. There are things that aren't predictable, and during the three mile ruck marches, you pray, because there's nothing else to do, because you need the reassurance, because you have to rely on a strength that's greater than your own, or at least I do when my own strength runs out. There's no other way to describe what happens other than you just keep on moving even when everything inside you says you can't keep doing, and it's probably true, but you keep stepping forward.