Yep, they were pretty amazing. March 15 miles, then build a fortified camp at the end of the day, complete with six foot ditches, dirt ramparts, a palisade, and tents laid out in a square with the same layout. Every day.
Plus carrying 100 lbs of equipment
Well, modern troops do something like that or did, lol, it’s been 35 yrs and it was in Germany. When we stopped we’d constantly improve the position. Dig fox holes, put up concertina wire, camouflage nets, clear fields of fire, pre-plot indirect fire, construct obstacles and fortifications and booby trap them, make range cards or diagrams of the area to one’s front with dead spaces ie., areas not covered by direct fire weapons, sector left and right limits marked, emplace mines, construct secondary positions, put out OPs and LPs, put up remote antennas for radios, string commo wire, construct overhead cover for the positions...it never ended. Admittedly I’m running together experiences with different types of units, armor, scouts, artillery, HQ/TOC/FDC positions, but there was always something to do.