The Best Military Running Scene in Hollywood Movies

 While running to prepare for an upcoming half-marathon, my mind drifted to running moments in Hollywood movies.  The usual suspects such as Rocky running up the stairs in Philadelphia or the opening sequence to Chariots of Fire where a band of runners race across a beach to some iconic music came to mind, but then I remembered a gem from my childhood, a James Garner movie called Tank. 

  In “Tank,” James Garner plays Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Zack Carey, and amazingly, I like his portrayal of a tough senior enlisted person.  He goes around the post, checking on troops and facilities within his division and there are some funny moments.  But the piece that takes the cake is when James Garner’s character wakes up at 4:30 in the morning and you next see him approaching a unit’s parade field while in physical training gear (back then, that outfit was unofficially called “the banana suit” due to its almost completely yellow color. 

  CSM Carey then proceeds to shout “Your division sergeant major is all alone on the battalion field.”

  And it’s after this moment, hundreds of Soldiers pour out of the barracks and from the parking lot, rush towards the assembly area, briefly do a dress-right-dress, and stand diligently in formation before CSM Carey.  The battalion’s Sergeant Major greets James Garner’s character, and all together, proceed onwards for a formation run.  A few seconds later, the formation runs by the commanding general’s house and wakes him up.  

See the Sequence here (watch for about 90 seconds)

  It’s this sequence that I absolutely love, and wish any of the Sergeants Major (yes, that is the plural of the singular noun “sergeant major”) who I have served with would replicate this phenomenon.  I’ve never seen anything close to this happening.  Instead, we normally got something to this effect:

  A battalion run would be scheduled for 0630.  The company commander or first sergeant would want the Soldiers to be in formation by 0615.  The platoon sergeant would dictate that his/her group of Soldiers show up at 0600 or 0610 (if they had some faith in their Joes).  The squad leaders in turn would tell their Soldiers to be ready to go 10-15 minutes prior to the platoon formation.

 In fact, I still remember a brigade formation run when I was at Fort Meade, and the brigade run was scheduled to start just after 0630.  By the time I, as a mere squad leader, got word on when to have my team there, we were told to be on the parade field by 0530.  That’s a whole hour before we were supposed to run.  Fortunately, that example is the most extreme one I have experienced.

 While the point is that we in the military had a tendency to have people show up early for just about anything, if someone pulled off a CSM Carey for a PT run, everyone involved would probably go bonkers in a good way and they would probably be pumped to do just about anything for the rest of the week.  I know I would.

Double time and Dance: Why a Song About an Airplane is More Important Than Audiobooks and Podcasts

  For 25 years of my running life, whenever I ran, there was a song being heard aloud.  Sometimes, that song involved a cargo plane. Other times, a song about where everyone was at during the run could be heard.  These songs were cadences and very familiar to anyone who has been in the military for more than a couple of weeks.  Cadences are rhythmic and set to a beat that is roughly 180 beats per minute. That sounds fast, but it is really just a beat that strikes every time the left foot hit the ground. 

  Cadences keep the military in step because whenever you have a large mass of people moving in the same direction, the most efficient way to do so is to have them in step so as to not have random people trip over each other and create some Looney Tunes falling scenario.  With the double-time march, each person starts by leading with their left foot as they move forward.  When I ran in formation, we usually had three or four columns of troops, depending on how many people were available and how big the overall operation encompassed.

  The cadences themselves would sometimes entertain the runners, but more often than not, everyone would end up with a “C-130 rolling down the strip,” and be one of “Sixty-four paratoopers taking a one-way trip.”  A few times, an adventurous person would sing this cadence with gusto or change up the routine a bit.  

  Cadence calling and cadence singing are a part of life in the military.  If you are running by yourself one day, you might mentally hear a running cadence in the back of your head and your feet adjust to the cadence rhythm.  I know my feet have… on multiple occasions.  I eventually hit a certain rank in the military where I could just do physical training on my own and my preferred choice of exercise is always running.  Weight training by myself? Uh, nooo. Plyometrics? I’ll pass. Run? Heck yeah!  If I wasn’t running with a select group of people, I would venture off and knock out six miles on my own, which probably scared some of my company commanders because in Texas, the temperatures creep up and we’ve heard reports of single runners getting hurt or even having a heart attack and no one was around.  But I would run and sometimes that mental C-130 would visit me.

  Which brings me up to my current running situation.  I usually run to music now. I slap my Zune into my right armband (because it still works and I love that thing), and I set out on workouts or 5k and 10k races with a preset playlist.  My running playlists have a tendency to be dance songs while I’m out there.  As much as I love genres like classic rock, old Motown, and current top 40, dance songs have a range of beats between 110 and 180 a minute.  Those beats help push me to go further and the slower dance songs help with a guy who has slowed down over the years. 

  I’ve had quite a few people tell me that I should listen to podcasts while running, but I just can’t.  For me, podcasts are reserved for non-exercise activities, to include driving.  But the biggest thing that stops me from doing podcasts and even audiobooks during a run is the lack of a beat.  I can’t run to someone conducting prose or explaining how the latest Intel processor will benefit a third world country’s school system.  But having Avicii and Carly Rae Jepsen going? Yea, that helps a lot more.

  Though, I have been known to start a race or two with the theme to Halo 3, or even the opening song to Chariots of Fire. 

  But that C-130 is always going to be with people like me.