With just 10 days to D-Day, and the uncooperative weather, we had to reschedule the final field exercise a couple of times. It was all systems go on that the evening (to simulate D-Day conditions), after the men had two full days of rest. The exercise comprises three manoeuvres, each with increasing level of difficulty.
The first manoeuvre had seven checkpoints and the men did well, surpassing the anticipated times: 5:45 (6:00), 6:10, 5:57, 5:53, 6:07, 6:07 (6:10). Form appeared very good, probably the two days of rest helped. The second manoeuvre went pretty smoothly as well - 6:01, 5:58, 6:01, 6:11 (6:06) - until the fourth checkpoint. One of the men started experiencing pain in the knee. Started with tightness, but developed into pain by the fourth checkpoint. I decided that it was more prudent to fail the exercise than to lose the battle. So called a change in exercise objective - called off the third manoeuvre and did a slow march instead. At completion (20 k), it was emergency first aid for the knee.
The prognosis wasn't too good, as the knee was stiff and painful for 24 hours. But fortunately, the pain went away by Sunday. So going to put the men through an easy pace this week (in the middle east!) for final systems check.
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