Part 2

To continue on the last post, after dinner the night navigation section of the exercise began. By this point, a rugby injury to my knee I had sustained had began to act up, conveniently when we had to march 5 kilometres to the next training area for the night exercise. As twilight set in, I gritted my teeth against the pain and made it to the final event for the day. We began to navigate to our points in the pitch dark through farmers fields, looking for everything from dead trees to hay bails. For me who navigated early in the rotation, this exercise consisted of me trailing at the rear, consistently stopping, taking a knee, and keeping an eye out for "threats" through the scope of my weapon. This lasted for hours as the head navigator attempted to locate a black sign in the dark, one of our last points. Craving water and sleep, we pressed on looking for this sign in the dark of the night. To our joy at around 1 am we saw our pickup on the way. We had done enough to reach the forces standard for navigation, now we were headed back to base for the most joyous moment that can be experienced by a soldier. Sleep.