Military cadence

[Brenus]

French army likes marches, especially during night (as it doesn’t waste time for day light proper training) and in combat conditions (meaning you can’t have talk and things like this). It always LOVE the “commando” marches which is to cover 8 km in half running half running manners with full gear (back pack at 15 kg, plus water, plus weapon). It is painful and excruciating, in one word, harsh.
I remember finishing one of these when the platoon (I was at the Infantry Combat School of Montpellier at that time, still a soldier of Rank) and we were ordered to formation, before to go to the barracks. We were all exhausted, sweating and smelly (this I suppose), out of breath (this I remember).
Then we were order to march in “départ en chantant”, meaning when your first step (left) you start to sing. The first notes were not brilliant, for what I recalled, but after 1 or 2 meter, air starting to go in the lungs, and the song went deeper, following the slow and sad words of soldiering. The heads went up, the backs straightened, weapons hold. And this feeling to belong to an elite floods in, to be part of the ones doing this. Difficult to explain.

http://youtu.be/CcuHzo8Hsz8