I was in the Army, but thankfully I never saw any actual combat. In training exercises, what stands out most in my memory is the constant, overbearing fatigue. You never ever get a good nights sleep out in the field. You’re always tired, always hungry, always miserable. It’s always hot, except when it’s freezing. You’re always dirty. Your hands are covered with the oil and grease that you pick up handling and maintaining your equipment. So, you get breakfree (the oil you clean rifles with) in your food and you can taste it when you eat. Everything that you wear starts to irritate you. The protective mask that we carried on our right thigh always used to rub me raw, and I’d have a blister like sore there for weeks afterwards. You’re carrying heavy equipment, and in spite of the fatigue you sometimes have to sprint, and sometimes have to crawl (which is worse than sprinting). Your joints ache, your head spins. It’s not fun. And note that none of that has anything to do with firing rifles. That’s all the stuff that you do just leading up to combat.
