What are we doing?

June 25th, 2001

35th Marche Européenne du Souvenir et de l'Amitié (MESA or European March of Memory and Friendship)

As I said to Marco van Zijntergen on the fourth day, at the triumphant arrival in Marche-en-Famenne, and after pinning the most impressive walking medal of whose existence I am aware, the green one with the boar on, to his chest: "Get it? The MESA beats them all". He had to agree, although on the first day it was he who asked me what it was that I thought was so great about this march.

I answered "Everything". And that's how it is. And if you've been through it for four days you know. Because it has then grown, on you and inside you. There is nothing like the MESA, and no march as beautiful.

That's not just because it was my first official march ever, last year. Yes, of course you never forget your first military march. Being confronted with that atmosphere for the first time is an unbelievable experience. But the MESA really also does bring along the best kind of all the aspects that a military march has to offer:
  • the landscape of course is incredible, since you're walking through the Belgian province of Luxembourg, the area around Bastogne, where the battle of the Bulge took place. This, beyond doubt, is one of the most picturesque regions in Europe (the late Bob Ross would have gone into cardiac arrest when setting eyes on it), and I can't help but sometimes think that von Rundstedt only started his offensive there, at the time, so that he would at least have something beautiful to look at, whilst fighting.



  • the sportive challenge, because of that same landscape, is of the highest calibre too. Whoever manages to finish this march, four times 32.5 kilometres uphill, downhill, cross country, largely unpaved and over uncleared footpaths through forest and field, in the blistering heat of late june (but also the nightly cold of the low moutainranges, which makes itself felt when sleeping in tents), is a brave hero, whether one has done Nijmegen 32 times or not.

  • the historical background of this journey is, at the very least, impressive. First organized in 1967 as a practice and remembrance march for and by the conscripts and professional soldiers of the Chasseurs Ardennais (Riflemen of the Ardennes), an elite unit of the Belgian army that fought valiantly when the German army attacked in 1940, this march, which also happens to run straight through the area of the Ardennes offensive of 1944, has grown into a homage to both the Chasseurs and all other soldiers killed during the fighting in this region. That concerns not just the ones on the allied side, like the Americans, with their 76.890 dead in this part of the fight, but those of all countries. And it still sends cold shivers down my spine to watch the parade, on the second day of marching, when arriving in Bastogne, at the star of the Mardasson, after the ceremony at the monument, in which both American, French, British, Belgian and German forces march past. Not to mention the small and larger monuments you pass everywhere along the route.



  • the organization of this march is absolutely impeccable. From the military police, which accompanies the buses in the morning and spends all day stopping traffic for the marchers at the various road crossings, to the helicopter pilots who fly off and on the entire day at lunch and other rests to transport supplies, personnel and wounded walkers, to their colleagues who do the same by truck, to the military and civilian personnel that supplies the marchers in their five dormitory camps and along the route with fine food and drink, to the utterly professional medical staff that is on permanent standby to render help where necessary: as a marcher, you cannot be in better hands than those of the Brigade Gauloise (the 7th mechanised of Marche-en-Famenne) and the civilians assisting it. That's something I always contentedly think of when watching one of those helicopters fly over during marching.



  • the track is always surprising. Although, this year, it partly resembled last year's one, at exactly the right moments totally unexpected things, often fairy-like in their beauty, happened (like the bridge at Bodange - what beautiful valley that; all the more scandalous, then, that Schelden abused that bridge by having a crap under it, when right next to it was a restaurant-with-proper-toilets).



  • and if you add all that together you have the reason for the incredible atmosphere that marks the MESA. And as I said, that atmosphere grows, as the week unfolds.


Since at the evening before the first day everyone logically is still a bit ill at ease. As were we (Jochem Prakke, Marco van Zijntergen, Henk van der Schelden and I), because although Henk and I had walked this march last year too, and Henk had done so once sometime before that too, after the drive down in Marco's Polo we ended up in a town that we, as the Wandelsoc. had not encountered before, La Roche. We ended up there, because from our email conversations with Steve Atkinson we had learned that the contingent from the Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire Wing ATC, of which we had gotten to know the 2457th Training Squadron very well in particular, the last time over, would bivouac there this year. And since we had gotten along with them so brilliantly at the time, we decided to enroll in the same camp.

Because of this, it turned out, we had to forgo the happy nightly drinking bouts with the Ex-Commandos' Walking Association (the WandelSWOC, so to speak) and with reservists Spaan, Bakx and that-beardy-nutcase-who-looks-like-Nico-de-Jong-but-whose-name-I-cannot-remember-for-the-life-of-me, because they were all in Marche-en-Famenne. But we only discovered this after arriving, and I do believe they were more bothered by not being in La Roche too than the other way around, because the accommodation in Marche had been moved from Camp Roi Albert (where we had a very comfortable time last year) to the Athenée (a local sports complex where the facilities are considerably aged compared to those at CRA, and thus didn't so much not come up to the mark as disappoint, or so I was told).



Not that we didn't have a good time. Because the reunion with the ATC was memorable. Although the team didn't have exactly the same composition as last year (people like Big Mat, Briney and Neil, for various reasons, weren't present this time) the newcomers (to us, since some of the faces new to us, like those of Graham Macaree, Steve Rowe, Andy and Tom Nicholls had been to the MESA before) brought enough colour and fun to compensate that generously. The 2457th, this year, were joined by a delegation from 332 High Wycombe Squadron which made it all the more fun. And with those we did know from last year, like Steve Atkinson, Lara Swain, Steve Callaghan, Samantha Cook and Elaine Porter, this naturally was a pleasant, if not even, in an underhand way, moving reunion.



Quite apart from the fun this brought behind the wellfilled glasses of Hoegaarden, it namely also led to magnificent sequels.



For instance Elaine, who last year, during her fourth MESA, had not been able to march on the third day due to severe tendon problems and had only been able to participate in part of the fourth day, finished the march this time over - but not without blisters, and considerable difficulty therefore. On the last day she finished together with Steve Rowe (he had blisters about as bad as mine - we'll come to mine later, but he's a hero anyway, since he finished it in spite of that blasted pain) and Graham as a group of three, apart from the rest, because all three had troubles. And no matter how much they themselves felt they were 'lesser ones' within the whole - true heroism, in marches like this one, of course does not lie with the experienced marchers who have no problems, but with those who have to conquer themselves and go through trouble. And in another one of those sequels Steve Callaghan, just like last year, was handed the task to support the stragglers by walking alongside them. Not an ungrateful, but a heavy and honourable task, which he fulfilled brilliantly, just like last year (by, this time over, walking with Steve Rowe on, particularly, the second day).

And Graham was quite a story all by himself. It appeared that, in years before my first MESA, he had failed to complete the march a few times, and he put that to right this year by finishing the mother without hitches. Quite a feat, whichever way you look at it. Moreover, any time I saw Graham, I had this almost uncontrollable urge to go "Oi George! 'Ow's Mildred then?" - which considerably brightened my day every day.

And there was new heroism too, like Tom's, who was dead keen on finishing the march, but had to give up on that due to incessant adversity - because first he was hit by an allergic reaction on his legs and by blisters, then by a severe allergic reaction that made his eyesocket swell until it burst and brown pus erupted from it, so that he couldn't walk on the third day, and, eventually, fell over with exhaustion on the fourth day, under too hot a sun, after making a brave, but heavily drugged attempt.

All in all, despite the fact that the ATC did not, like last year, win the 'Best Team' award (but that's at least partly because the MESA organizers are clever enough to rotate the thing), I again raise my black hat to them out of deep respect. I never fail to be impressed by this group, as young as they are (their maximum age is 19, after all, barring officers): it takes both guts and discipline to do what the ATC does. Well done, England.

The black hat which, by the by, I did wear, as the only addition and 1 of 2 changes to the outfit I wore at this march last year. Since, because everybody had laughed at me last year because of that outfit and my lousy walking, I had a steadfast resolve to do two things: 1. I would wear the same outfit and 2. I would march a lot better, since I was trained much better. And the first thing did become truth, although, at this second MESA, I had replaced the Cat-of-Haarzuilens (a souvenir from my first practice march) with, on the first day, the civilian MESA-baton (I had after all earned the right to wear it during my first one), its military baton (on the second and third day, since I'd lost the civilian baton in La Roche's Irish pub on the evening of the first day :-D), and the military makeup of the MESA medal (on the fourth day), and had, moreover, bought a black cowboy hat, because during Diekirch I got sunburnt on the top of my head for the first time, and did not deem that an experience worth repeating.

The cowboyhat got me a whole new set of nicknames (apart from last year's ones, which resurfaced, and to which Ben Jeursen later, in his write-up of the march, added 'Black Crow'): 'Lone Ranger', 'Sandeman', 'Cowboy Dan', 'Die schwarze Rache', 'Der finstere Bursche' and, not a nickname but at least as much fun, from both Belgian and French soldiers, a question- and answer whistlery from 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly'. Of course, I was the proudest of and happiest with the recognition that showed itself in the old nickname, uttered with a measure of awe this time over: 'Matrix'.

But the second thing, that I would march better because I was trained well, failed to materialize dismally. Well, maybe that's a bit overstated - because I did not have inflamed tendons like last year, no muscle aches, and definitely less blisters. But I did have them, and heavily too, and that was entirely my own fault. You see, because I felt that my wellworn trainers (on which I had after all marched both the Death March and 'Crossing Borders From Border To Border' without blisters) would largely be useless on the MESA trail (which in itself was true, because a. those shoes are hell on slopes of more than 10% covered in loose slate and b. it had rained shortly before so there was a fair amount of mud on the track, and walking on trainers still wet from the day before is not a fun thing to do) I had acquired a pair of sturdy new army boots with a good profile. But because I could only free the money for them (they cost me about 200 guilders) about a week-and-a-half before the MESA, they had not been broken in sufficiently at all.

This, I had to pay for dearly. As astoundingly well as Jochem Prakke and Marco van Zijntergen got through this, their first MESA, just so lousily I marched it for the second time. By the end of day 1 (Léglise-Martelange, which by the way was the day on which, at the sunsplashed start, we reacquainted Adjutant van Dongen and the Dutch reservists and Henk, who had already started that morning cheerfully by redebarking from the bus vomiting before it even left, gave an interview to the local Walloon newspaper in which we therefore appeared as Wandelsoc. by way of a group portrait, and then proceeded to drink beer, for an hour or so, with me, the Dutch reservists and the mayor of Léglise, so that we left much later than Jochem and Marco), I turned out to have two bloodblisters on top of my small toes just as big as those toes themselves, and two 'normal' ones on my heels. When, after arriving in Martelange and having been transported back to La Roche, I had had them deskinned and cleaned by the army medics, I walked around drinking beer on my socks, the rest of the night - but then there were still three days of marching to follow



(which themselves followed a short late-night-intermezzo in which Schelden, on the terrace of a bar in La Roche, discovered a student fraternity and immediately decided to go and teach them the entire Zofinger songbook, while Marco and I looked on in amazement; although we should have expected it, since Schelden had already stood on top of the tables of the bar in camp, earlier on that night, reciting in the general direction of the British):

  1. Day two: Bavigne-Bastogne
    (started in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg with a bizarre crossing in groups-of-about-twenty of a pontoon bridge, beau-ti-ful track, which caused me less trouble than I had expected, because Marco marched alongside me the whole day long so that I didn't really have much time to think about the pain: before I knew it we were at that impressive ceremony at the Mardasson that I for once got to attend almost entirely, where I had arrived too late for it last year, and where, impressive, Marco agreed, an original American veteran was present)



  2. Day three: La Roche-La Roche
    (the only day on which we walked the 'boucle' (loop) instead of the 'ligne' (line), which, partly sadly, spared me a painful reunion with Houffalize, where the ligne started that day and where I had arrived crying with pain last year, and meant we could rise nice and late, since we slept in La Roche¹, but which did confront us with that insanely steep hill at the beginning, which, by the way, I didn't mind at all, because upwards was much less painful to me than downwards - other than that this was the emotionally most beautiful stage, because on the third day most casualties start to appear and those who finish this stage finish the march, and we made a nice party with the ex-commandos at the finish, during which Schelden, guised in various outfits and much to the delight of the surrounding crowd, hijacked the karaoke micro and performed silly dances, for which he had to pay with a sprained ankle) and



  3. Day four: Saint Hubert-Marche
    (the least appealing stage, since it often concerned barren sandtrails, but nonetheless pretty enough to warrant a beautiful holiday dream).




And so they were painful days. This effect was enhanced by the fact that, each day, the blisters on my heels were neatly packed by the medics, but because of this there was even less room for my toes, in those boots - so that my toes had a very hard time, particularly on descents, and two more blisters developed on them during the second and third day. This did not stop me from marching, because I was in better shape than last year, and there's Goethe. All the same, it made my finishing the march this year an experience comparable to last year's. Small wonder then that I reached the finish in tears, although that was not just because of the pain, but also because of the overwhelming emotional impression the MESA as a whole continues to make. As that-beardy-nutcase-who-looks-like-Nico-de-Jong-but-whose-name-I-cannot-remember-for-the-life-of-me understood well, who therefore embraced me in brotherly fashion, by the finish line. Beautiful moments.

This was not changed by the fact that this was my first 'pin'-march (I marched for one of those unsightly stars-with-a-two-on instead of for a real medal, eh). Also, Jochem, when finding out the MESA Shop had already packed and gone home, made me a gift of his freshly bought Chasseurs-beret-with-silver-boarpin-on, a gesture I will not forget lightly (although I must of course get the gold version of that pin, for officers, too ;-)). Very sweet of him.

And if I add that to the fun we had on the third day, during the short ride in Marco's car, to Marche-en-Famenne with Elaine and Simon Cook (Marco and I took them there by Steve's request, so that they could book a restaurant there for the team pizza on the night of the fourth marching day, but abused the opportunity for a short and unannounced visit to the beertable of the KCT² in the Athenée there), and to the fun we had on the terraces and in the bars and restaurants of La Roche (special mention goes to the ex-tre-mely friendly Egyptian man who, especially for us and together with his daughter, reopened his shoarma-restaurant after closing time), and to the fun and emotional reunions we had with old acquaintances during walking (like the Belgian couple whom we had met at last year's MESA but who had also stood by the roadside cheering us on at the start of the DeathMarch in Bornem, and like bald excommando Jan, whom we also hadn't seen for an entire year, or like that Flemish guy who had scared the beejeebees out of me last year when, on the night before the first day of marching, he cheerfully went jogging around Camp Roi Albert, or like the guy-with-the-cowboyhat-and-goatee who this year, and as usual at an uncannily great speed, marched his 21st MESA), and to the fun Henk and I had afterwards during our onenight stay at Astrid van Loon's (a girl with whom Prakke had contentedly talked about fucking with the entire time during the last day of marching) in Gilze-Rijen (fine lady, and 't Tipje in Gilze is a fine bar, we were fortunate enough to discover, even before Jochem, Henk and I returned to Astrid's home the week after, to enjoy a great barbecue - salient detail, by the way, is that Schelden, during that first stay at her house, while sleepwalking in the early hours of morning, could not find the loo and therefore proceeded to piss in his own walking boot, only to cursingly discover this when waking later on; worse, it was the same shoe that had to fit the ankle still injured from his dancing on the third day, hahaha), then the conclusion is obvious once more: my thanks to everybody, but in particular to the Belgian medics³, and uhm... ...I'll be back.



There. Sheesh, that's nice, soaking yer feet in a pail of water-and-Biotex-green.

To your health gentlemen, excellent walking there. The MESA is ours. Nijmegen awaits.


¹ We slept in one tent with the ATC. A partytent, very large, on asphalt with wooden boards for bottom in it, but MUCH colder at night, therefore, than the dormitory at Camp Roi Albert was, last year. We only discovered this during the second night, and this immediately prompted Jochem, Henk and Marco to move to the sports hall across the road. Bunch of sissies. I only had my coat to cover me, just like the year before, but I nevertheless held my position one night longer than they did. And the fact that I did join them for the last night was a pure concession to the discomfort my feet gave me, otherwise that would never have happened - after all, the ATC remained there as well, very cool.

² By the way, my dear Jeursen, would you please never call me a 'pseudo' again? I am not worthy of licking these excommandos' boots and am therefore definitely not going to compare myself to them. I'd much rather call them a bunch of lazy faggots at the beertable, grinning broadly ;-) - after all, I'm Wandelsoc., yes?

³ I didn't get to finish the remark on the morning of the fourth day of marching, because my French was too lousy, but when that medic said 'Gee sir, it appears you suffer much more when we treat you than while you're marching' and I answered 'But that is because your treatment...', I meant '...is that good', yes? Just so he doesn't get me wrong, because before I could find the French for it he had already left, with a 'Va t'en'.