Winter warfare, real winter warfare, sucks absolute ass. You have to have experienced, well-equipped troops to deal with that environment, and it isn’t enough to simply hand out cold-weather gear. You have to have actually been out in that crap, and become acclimated (resigned?) to fighting in it.

I’ve spent several winters in Korea, and I’m here to tell you, that peninsula has got to be the most God-awful place to fight a war we’ve ever deployed troops to. The hills are hell in the summer; in deep, cold winter? Satan would take one look at the conditions, and say “Yeah, that’s something I wouldn’t do to either the damned or my demonic staff…”.

Garrison life sucks in Korea during the wintertime; being out in the field? Indescribable.

Although, it is hysterically funny to observe the unacclimated trying to cope. Had a guy from Florida, who’d literally never, ever seen the snow or temperatures under about 50 Fahrenheit in his life. Poor bastard went through basic in summertime at Fort Leonard Wood, then was assigned to Fort Polk. He thought he’d seen the worst winter ravages possible, there, but then he got orders to Korea and arrived in early February, right before the last Team Spirit. Poor bastard nearly died of shock alone, from the discovery that it was colder outside than the inside of his momma’s freezer back home. Pitiful state… I think he’d have cheerfully let the enemy kill him, if we’d been at war, to make the suffering stop…