FORT POLK, La. -- The Bravo Company Bandits, 3rd Battalion, 353rd Infantry Regiment, 162nd Infantry Brigade, were in search of anything other than your average, ordinary physical training session when they cooked up the idea of PT "Fear Factor" style for the unit's battalion fun run March 12.

It all began with an idea from Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Wooddell. When tasked to come up with courses of action that would enhance esprit-de-corps, the battalion commander was intrigued with the idea of everyone getting slimed, low-crawling through muck and above all else, having fun.

The Soldiers of 3rd Bn formed into six six-man teams identified by colors. Each team had to move through six challenging stations, collecting items that would be essential for the next station and ultimately taken all the way to the finish line.

In station one, "key retrieval," team members had to retrieve the correct color-coded key from a bucket of maggots (rice krispies). Team members placed their hands behind their backs as they dunked their faces into the bucket of muck hoping to secure the right color key on the first try. Filled with the hope that they had the easy station, several team members such as Capt. Kate Nilsen made it halfway back to the finish line before she realized she'd bobbed for the wrong color key. Nilsen was not alone as Pfc. Brett Neisz also had the wrong color key and dropped his along the way. Penalties were assessed each time the teams made errors.

New to the unit is Staff Sgt. Anthony Lousignont, battalion S-2, who was formally welcomed as he approached station two, "dumpster dive," with great enthusiasm. Having secured the key from the previous mission, Lousignont had to take his team's key to the next station, pull up a 30-pound weight with a series of locks on it from a 50-gallon barrel of extremely foul-smelling water, green slime and of course, more maggots. Securing his team's lock was harder than it looked, but by the fourth attempt, he found the right lock and returned to his start point in record time.

Station three, "rat trap," proved to be the highlight of the morning. Soldiers had to sprint a short distance to a wooden box, low crawl to the center of the box through slime, muck and mud, feel around and dig for their color-coded ammunition box. Once they secured the correct colored can, a lever was depressed, dropping lots of shredded paper onto their already mud-drenched bodies as they continued to low-crawl out the end of the box.

First Sgt. Wallace Doss approached this challenge with much vigor as he low-crawled like a professional and was undaunted by the mud. Doss was on his way to a perfect finish before his boots tripped him up coming out the end of the rat trap, causing him to lose time as he had to recover his ammunition box.

Station four, "a bad Saturday night," consisted of team members spinning around with their head on the handle of a baseball bat 20 times; they then had to sprint 20 yards to a bucket filled with slimy underwear. After putting on a pair of the underwear they then had to sprint, still dizzy, nother 20 yards to their finish line. Every Soldier had a healthy dose of laughter as they watched Command Sgt. Maj. Terry Sutton take down a safety as he completed his spins and was underwear-bound to the finish line, looking like a drunken pirate. Safeties were positioned incrementally to catch any too-dizzy team members.

The final two stations involved the "cow-pie eating contest," which involved Soldiers eating their way to the bottom of a pie pan filled with whipped cream, chocolate syrup and brownie mix to find an instruction card at the bottom. The instruction card presented the team with directions on the final objective, which had to be completed as a team effort. Each team had three 2-by-4 foot boards at varying lengths. As a team, they had to cross an obstacle course of sand bags without anyone falling off, all the while carrying their keys, locks, ammunition can, underwear and instruction card. The correct board had to be used and placed onto the sand bags and then all team members had to stay together as a team while the next board was placed. The boards were coated with grease, making it more challenging and slippery.

When asked what he thought about this unconventional style of exercise, Pfc. Jesse Hart, the youngest Soldier in the battalion, said, "that was the most awesome course. I had a lot of fun and would like to do this more often."

By the time the scores were tabulated it was no surprise that the battalion commander's team was the winner.