every time there were physical training, obstacle course, a run with sbo or a march with fbo my fellow trainees and i looked forward to them. they were more rewarding to mind and body and much less "shiong" than digging trenches in the clay hills of sarimbun. most miserable time in ns was staying holed up for days in a foxhole when it pours. the m&d got into boots, socks, underwear, rifle, backpack, etc. and it kept on raining until foxhole got filled up. and when (blank) firing was required to defend the hill, the rifle jammed from m&d. in a real battle we would all be dead from jammed weapons. and then after a year of back-to-back training from bmt to section leader to combat engineer to bridging, all those infantry stuff paled in comparison to fixing broken tracks of an m60a1 chassis stranded in a m&d patch on a dirt road that was sloped and uneven (yes those heavy tracks do come off). under the hot sun with only another fellow tankee to help. just to carry one section of spare track required brute strength. physical fitness for any ns men should be rudimentary with self-prep and awareness by 6.9 weeks of bmt. if trainees rely on others, instructors and manuals of instructions and policy to survive the most rudimentary of training they shouldn't progress to the next level. they should have died at or failed their bmt.