The 18 Mile Rucksack March, for charity

**Von Rheydt** · 09-29-10, 11:28

Does anyone fancy doing the 18 Mile Rucksack March sometime early nexy year?

Why 18 MIles? Well, Mr Haney, formerly of Delta Force, described it in his book.

Why do it at all? Well, I was thinking that people could make a donation of around $20 for the experience and that we would present the money to something like the Spec Ops Warrior Foundation and whatever the swab jockey (no offence) equivelent is.

Added to which, as a refinement, as it is a rucksack march there needs to be a rucksack. So, I would suggest a minimum weight of 40 pounds.........with a $1 penalty for every pound under 40.

Location? Lets see if there is any interest first. It could be arranged as a "March and Shoot", starting and finishing at a range with a couple of prizes and a barbecue. Not marching with weapons though.

Well gentlemen, thoughts? It would be nice to arrange something social, meaningful and testing.

**Turnkey11** · 09-29-10, 12:59

Sounds fun,whenever I suggest things like that here (Hawaii) I end up rucking by myself, haha. Are you going to aim for a time limit, 4.5 hours for example?

**Von Rheydt** · 09-29-10, 14:10

Originally Posted by N.Franklin

Sounds fun,whenever I suggest things like that here (Hawaii) I end up rucking by myself, haha. Are you going to aim for a time limit, 4.5 hours for example?

4.5 would be about on the mark for a respectable 18 mile yomp.

The thing is I would rather bring down the distanace and involve as many as possible than scare people away with tight limits and distances.

Just an idea that could be transcended into a fun event and give people some bragging rights afterwards...........t-shirt mandatory.

**bkb0000** · 09-29-10, 14:17

you should have it be a by-the-mile sponsorship thing. get sponsors to commit to $X per mile, or maybe $X per minute shaved off a "par time" for completion, better yet. added incentive to step it up.

this is giving me ideas for my region... i'm totally gonna bite your style.

**Von Rheydt** · 09-29-10, 15:13

Originally Posted by bkb0000

you should have it be a by-the-mile sponsorship thing. get sponsors to commit to $X per mile, or maybe $X per minute shaved off a "par time" for completion, better yet. added incentive to step it up.

this is giving me ideas for my region... i'm totally gonna bite your style.

Sponsorship is a possibility. If it happened I would say that people still paid their $20 buck AND got sponsors if they wanted to hassle people for more.

Personally I was going to do what someone did in the UK. They put the 40 pound minimum limit up and had a set of scales that only went up to 30 pounds. So everyone had to dip in for another $10.

For me its all about giving to the guys and girls in harms way, often underpaid and unappreciated.

The idea came from a conversation I had about 2 years back with a SOCOM guy when I was falling from the sky in Zephyrhills. We looked around the DZ and reckoned we could have a really great military style party there. There are roads and tracks to march on, southern exposure is just down the road and for those stupid enough there is always the possibility of skydiving.

**RogerinTPA** · 09-29-10, 17:03

Originally Posted by Von Rheydt

4.5 would be about on the mark for a respectable 18 mile yomp.

The thing is I would rather bring down the distanace and involve as many as possible than scare people away with tight limits and distances.

Just an idea that could be transcended into a fun event and give people some bragging rights afterwards...........t-shirt mandatory.

Agreed. I think 18 miles would turn a lot of people off as far as participation is concerned. Why not a standard 12 mile Infantry road march? 3 hour time limit, starting and ending at Southern Exposure. Pistol shoot at the beginning, carbine at the end, with BBQ. I'd be down for that.

Originally Posted by bkb0000

you should have it be a by-the-mile sponsorship thing. get sponsors to commit to $X per mile, or maybe $X per minute shaved off a "par time" for completion, better yet. added incentive to step it up.

this is giving me ideas for my region... i'm totally gonna bite your style.

Agreed. Add a $50.00 or $100.00 entry fee in addition to the sponsorship, would help boost the end result.

**Von Rheydt** · 09-29-10, 20:18

Roger, I'm open to ideas, suggestions and input.........and help if it takes off.

If 12 miles is the standard for Infantry that will be fine. What is the weight requirement for that?

I think that $100 may be tight for some people though, and at the end of the day the more the merrier. It'd have to be costed: Range fee's; t-shirt; bar-b-q; and a respectable wedge to the nominated good causes.

Nice idea pistol shoot to start, 12 miles then carbine to finish. A scoring method could be used to determine overall position with a prize or two here and there. I was also thinking [begging] approaches could be made to some of the larger commercial concerns for bits and pieces in that respect.

I was also thinking about building a website and throwing it out to some of the other forums out there in interweb world. Anyone with suggestions in that regard?