A mate of mine is serving in 45 Cdo. During training (2003) he injured his knee on the tarzan assault course during his Commando Course. Instead of getting it checked out he cracked on & passed out - with the help of a few painkillers.
Got sent to 45 Cdo & all was fine & dandy. He had to take painkillers sometimes to get himself through phys but generally he was doing well and received quite a few chuck-ups from his Sgt Maj & Tp Boss for the effort he put in.
Then he went to the US on EX Blackhorse last year. During the cold weather warfare phase he twisted his knee when skiing & made the injury much worse. For months afterwards he could barely do phys, even standing for longer than a few minutes was painful. He started getting A LOT of stick from the other blokes as they thought he was just faking it to try and get out of phys (to the untrained eye his knee looks normal). He even got threatened with a dishonourable discharge by his OC unless he cracked on.
Luckily now his knee is pretty much sorted again. It still gives him a bit of trouble but he can do phys and he said he has re-earned some of the respect he lost from the lads. His OC has also come around.
However, this could have been avoided had he gone to sick bay & got the injury sorted in the first place. The fact that he didn't means that he is probably going to be affected by this for life. Think about it guys. Take the advice that is here (Doc, Artist etc...).
I don't want to sound like a preacher because I haven't done even 5 mins of RM trg but I think this case highlights the dangers of trying to ignore injuries.
Dan
