Close to 50,000 soldiers around the U.S. and overseas spent a weekend night sweating out a 12-mile march after a small change in an Army regulation allowed soldiers to earn a unique foreign decoration for the march.
The soldiers at dozens of major Army bases took part in the Royal Danish Air Force March, also known as the Danish Flyver March, which ends in participants getting a patch and the ribbon. The event involves rucking 20 kilometers, or just over 12 miles, with a 10-kilogram (or 23-pound) rucksack. Several soldiers, though, told Task & Purpose they bumped their load to 35 pounds, the weight required in standard U.S. expert skill badge testing, like those for infantry and medics.
“Our battalion had 50 participants take part,” an infantry soldier at Fort Hood, Texas, told Task & Purpose. About 1,000 soldiers joined the march across the Texas base, the soldier said, most in the early morning hours. “Our unit aimed to hold to the infantry standard of a 35-pound ruck and the 12.4 miles in under 3 hours for Expert Infantry and Expert Soldier Badge validation.”
The Danish annual event traces its roots back to the 1970s, and while a few thousand U.S. troops participated in last year’s march, the award wasn’t approved for wear as a ribbon on dress uniforms as a foreign award. But in late 2025, the Army’s Human Resources Command updated Army Regulation 600-8-22, Appendix D, adding it to the list of approved foreign military awards.
With the change, interest exploded. Nearly 50,000 soldiers in the U.S. and abroad took part in the ruck, according to an Army officer who helped coordinate events and spread the word on the march. Under the pseudonym NFMGuy_Emeritus, the officer posted to the Army’s unofficial subreddit, providing soldiers with official updates on the rules and details of ruck events.
Completion came with a certificate signed by the march’s creator, Sgt Lasse Bak Gustafson, and a patch and medal bearing the winged logo of the Royal Danish Air Force.
Unlike some Army skill badges and medals, the Danish Flyver March award isn’t limited to a specific unit or location. Troops just had to load up their ruck and march.
And turnout was big. The 3rd Infantry Division’s event at Fort Stewart, Georgia, saw nearly 1,300 participants. More than 1,600 took part at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii.
1st Lt. John McGuire, the strength manager for the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, who organized the Fort Stewart event, called the ruck the basis for readiness for combat.
“It’s putting something heavy on your back, whether it be a fallen comrade, whether it be the gear that you need to complete the mission, and going an unknown distance at an unknown pace until you are told to stop to complete the mission,” McGuire said at the Fort Stewart event.
The flyver march is not the only foreign military ruck event that soldiers can earn awards for completing. It joins Luxembourg’s Marche Internationale de Diekirch, the Dutch International Four Days Marches Nijmegen and the Norwegian Foot March.
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