By Here is a picture from the 2ID Indianhead Newspaper showing the new cold weather gear being tested up in 2ID land:
Judging from the picture, this cold weather gear looks exactly like the old cold weather gear except a different color to match the new Army Combat Uniforms (ACUs). Anyway I guarantee this cold weather gear is better than ROK Army cold weather gear:
10:08 am on February 24th, 2007 1
First wearing backpacks on one shoulder, then tan boots with woodland BDU’s, then black Matterhorns with ACU’s, then woodland Goretex with ACU’s, DCU Camel-baks and knee/elbowpads with ACU’s or woodland BDU’s…I swear, all this mix-n-matching has rendered AR 670-1 all but obsolete, and yet I’ve still got overzealous field grades and sergeants major busting my balls about minutiae such as how I blouse my trousers and wearing foliage green inserts as gloves with my ACU’s.
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6:25 am on February 25th, 2007 2
There was a lengthy spell when the ROK’s DID have better cold weather gear than ours, especially their cold weather footwear.
As late as late 1980’s we still had the late 1940’s design and manufacture sleeping bags, parkas, field pants, and micky-mouse boots. And it seemed like there was no sensible “warrior standard” for what you could wear outdoors in garrison. The KATUSA’s own winter class A/B uniform was the wool pants and field shirt, with pile cap (all OD green).
The ROK’s already had reversible camo/overwhite goretex parkas/pants, and really decent polypro underwear.
The thing that blew my mind was when the Army introduced the black wool pullover. We didn’t know at the time that this excellent piece of gear was meant as part of the class B uniform, and we we wearing it over our fatigue shirts, under field jackets (exactly as the USMC was using this fine wool garment in the field!). A newly arrived SGM kindly set us straight, but admitted that it was a good bit of gear wasted on office pogues.
With the old cold weather gear, in January almost up until Team Spirit in March, it took some people every stitch to keep warm:
-underwear/T-shirt
-white wool long underwear
-green wool gabardine pants, field shirt
-field pants/jacket
-parka/pants-overwhites
-micky mouse boots
-deerskin trigger-finger mittens
-True story: A friend was on guard duty and went to take a piss. Reaching into his fly, he accidentally pulled out the shirt tail of his wool shirt, went to pee pand ended up pissing all over himself, inside this bundle. He stayed on guard for several hours longer, but ended up getting bad frostbite on the front of one leg.
He was at 121 getting treated when Suzanne Summers (blond TV bimbo of the era) came though on a USO tour. She visited this guy’s ward, where she asked him “What’s the hardest part about winter in Korea”?
With CG and CSM of EUSA in earshot, he blurts out the truth:
“Trying to get 3 inches of dick through 6 inches of clothing!”
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8:10 am on February 25th, 2007 3
Bob,
That is a funny story. I do have to say the coldest I have ever been is in Korea. The cold weather boots aren’t that great so I bought these really warm gortex socks to wear with the boots. Also the army gloves aren’t any good either. The leather gloves and inserts are completely inadequate. Black winter gloves I bought in the ville were warmer than the army issued ones.
The black fleece jacket is a piece of cold weather gear that they issued a couple years back that is actually pretty warm. Now if only the Army could do something about the boots and gloves.
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10:59 am on February 25th, 2007 4
Since I’m a cold weather injury with 4 oak leaf clusters (mainly due to 2 tours in 10th Mountain), I’ve learned that from now on nothing at all will prevent my fingers and toes from getting frostbite if I’m outside sub-zero for more than a few hours at a time.
However, I think the neck gaiter, polypro worn closest to the skin, and the old-school field jacket and pants liners are the best pieces of snivel out there. The Goretex pants and parka are good because you can get into the prone without getting wet from melting snow.
To keep my hands warm, I plug two 9-volt batteries together and keep them inside my Goretex gloves.
As for my feet, they’re screwed.
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5:40 am on February 26th, 2007 5
I hate to say it, but the micky-mouse boots DID work, but they were not the sort of things you’d want to do an 18-mile road march in. What I would recommend, if you can get them, are the old gray AF canvas and rubber mukluks. They were made for a dry cold, deep snow environment. If you find them (if the AF still issued them) they come with thick wool inserts. You need to score a few extra pairs. We also had the trigger-figger mittens with wolf fur on the backs; decent gear.
But is also sounds like you have problems with circulation to the extremities, and I can’t help anybody there. Especially if you’re a black guy. With blacks and CW injuries, the circulation can actually shut down, and getting it re-started takes an act of God.
I’m blessed with good circulation, I guess. I almost never wore gloves in the winter, at least while working in the MOPO. The best boots I ever had for general winter wear were the Danner FT Lewis boots, of which Matterhorns are a poor copy.
But looking at what my son is issued now, I have to say I’m surprised. His TA-50 issue probably prices out at a couple grand. Even in SF, a whole issue back in the day might run a little under $300, and the greater part of that were the cost of some shitty Chippewa boots (the best we had in the inventory then). Chips were what we used for cross country skiing.
I was bewildered by the variety of boots sold at clothing sales now. I bought a pair of the Bates brand brown infantry combat boot, and wear them everyday. I’m surprised at what a nice set of boots they are, if they are what’s being issued now.
The old DMS (70-80’s) boot were pieces of shit, could not be re-soled, and were made of course by the lowest bidders. They cost just under $10.00. The jungle boots and early desert boots were made by the same technology, and were barely okay, as far as durability.
But the one uniform everybody loved were the OG-107 jungle fatigues. CSM’s loved them because they took starch and looked sharp. In the field they would dry quickly. Another thing we found was that for some reason, they were more invisible to IR than even BDU’s were supposed to be. But the best part was the price: $8.00 a set. In SF we were issued like 10 sets. We wore these in the winter with polypro underneath.
One damned good question about the new winter gear: Are you required to wear a BDU/DCU/ACU with it? The original idea behind the layering of all of the high tech shit was that you would not wear one…we wore polypro and ‘bear suits’ with the 1st gen goretex, but no uniforms. The cotton trapped and held moisture that was supposed to be vented.
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5:48 am on February 26th, 2007 6
Bob,
It is slowly being corrected but you look at a US military formation today and you have people with all different kinds of uniforms. Even body armor and kevelars you have a mixture of all three uniforms. This drives sergeant majors crazy. However, it will stay this way until the military supply system can get everyone fielded with ACU equipment. As you can see they haven’t even decided on ACU cold weather gear yet. So the mismatching of uniforms will continue for a little while longer.
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8:45 am on February 26th, 2007 7
Bob, I actually told my guys to do it that way, much to the chagrin of a lot of the NCO’s who were all about “uniformity” and everything “IAW AR 670-1.”
Proper wear of cold weather gear, as with anything else, requires some simple education and getting the old farts to think “outside the box.” I only wore BDU’s between the polypro and Goretex when I knew for a fact that I would be removing the Goretex inside a TOC or something like that.
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9:40 am on February 26th, 2007 8
Mark,
I remember when I used to work with 2nd Tank the battalion commander put out a directive that no one would wear BDUs over the polypros. They wore simply polypros and the gortex over it. He even let the soldiers wear the pile cap instead of the useless berets during the winter. It is possible to think outside the box but unfortunately to many people rather not.
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1:02 pm on February 26th, 2007 9
Was that LTC Jocz? Good guy.
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1:19 pm on February 26th, 2007 10
Another good question: just how fire-retardant is “fire retardant”? The thing with the old wool stuff was that it was very resistant to catching fire, whereas polypro most assuredly is not. It also melts to the skin and is hard to debride…sent my son a box of woolies while he was in Iraq for just this reason.
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4:14 pm on February 26th, 2007 11
Mark,
I can’t remember his name off the top of my head now because it was 6 years ago, but he was a really good commander. I remember LTC Jocz from when he worked in the bunker. You are right, he is a good dude.
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6:47 pm on February 26th, 2007 12
Do any of you guys remember when GEN Luck was the CG of 2ID? remember those green NBC boots how many of ya’ll wore tennis shoes with them? feet never got cold member the bear suit never got to use it’s full potential. what ya’all no about the policy of if it kept your warm it was legal. long as it was black, brown or OD
Bones
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12:29 am on February 27th, 2007 13
Gary Luck was very liberal with that policy, much to the delight of the ajossi’s in the ville selling gloves and other snivvel gear.
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7:12 pm on February 27th, 2007 14
Bob,
You learned will quick about Ajushi’s scams those gloves etc; did not work after the first field problem. To this day I could never figure out why Ajuma could go out to the field with you. You knew you were moving when she broke down her tent. It’s 2007 and it’s still happening from what I hear. We could not take pogi bait but Ajuma had it all. These days you can spot Command because they bring their bubble tents that they brought from Wal-mart.
Bones
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8:34 pm on February 27th, 2007 15
Bones,
It’s like this. If you let ajumma set up inside your perimiter and rip off Soldiers with outrageous prices and I-O-U tab-running scams, you won’t get hit by Slicky Boy. However, if you kick her conniving ass out of the perimiter, you’ll lose a bunch of TA-50 and sensitive items if you’re not careful.
Catch-22. Sort of like Korea.
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4:15 am on February 28th, 2007 16
Ah…the field ajummas…
I was in the 329th ASA. As we were always in small teams, we never had, -in garrison, or the field, any of theses nice mercenary ladies.
But then I went to PLDC, at that compound just down the road from Hovey. I was amazed that each section had its own designated Ajumma, selling choco-pies and c-rat coffee through the fence during breaks (at .50 a cup!).
My classmates, who came from all the other units in division told me a million and one stories about their PLT’s ajumma’s. Cracked me up. These women were loan-sharking, pimping, all kinds of shit. But to these women we owe the sine qua non of Korean cuisine, ‘budae kogi jjigae’ (“military unit meat stew”) and the indefatiguable cheese ramyon.
At PLDC, I led a PLT boycott of our ajumma to get her to lower her prices. The very next day, the Sr instructor comes into class demanding to know what kind of problem we had with our ajumma! That told me all I needed to know about the cadre’s relationship with the ajumma’s.
But the ladies’ real cash cow became apparent during the FTX portion. The NCO academy even furnished an M35 (deuce & a half) for them to load all their shit up and follow us to the field (just that area East of Tokko-ri). There they sold all kinds of shit. Nobody had to break into a C-rat unless they perversely liked them.
Where they really made a bundle was collecting brass, because in the FTX portion we shot up basic load after load.
True story: in my squad, I made the 71L guy (clerk) carry and run the M60. now, as anybody knows, the M60 doesn’t work worth a shit firing blanks. Nevertheless, the 71L is trying his best to keep the weapon cleared and firing. Ajumma is following him up hill catching brass in her skirt. About the 5th time the weapon jammed, she took it out of his hands and cleared it for him using the tried & true ‘kick-start’ method.
The next thing I know, as we are coming to the crest of the hill we’re supposed to be assaulting, I turn around, and ajumma is running the M60, and the 71L has his steel pot off, catching spent brass for her….
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6:49 am on February 28th, 2007 17
Nice to hear that Cheese Ramyon is still a staple, I was living on it 1979-80. There was a restaurant downrange, your first right down the alley, that served a great Omu-rice too. I had forgotten about the Ajumma’s following us around on FTX”s, they did it back then too, they would follow us like hungry housecats and practically catch the red-hot spent brass as they left the ejection port of our M-16’s, I honestly don’t think it would hit the ground.
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8:54 am on February 28th, 2007 18
Bob Walsh, that story about ajumma manning the “pig” is killing me!
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9:23 am on February 28th, 2007 19
Not tooooo many years ago, I think there was actually a case up on Nightmare/Rodriguez range where a Korean or two was killed while trying to catch 20mm brass while Cobras were doing a live fire. Yes, brass was a valuable and saleable commodity for the Koreans back then…to be recycled as cheesy souvenirs to sell back to GI’s.
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1:07 pm on February 28th, 2007 20
Trust me…the brass trade is still going on, and they’ve perfected their shady techniques well beyond the days of catching spent cartridges.
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6:18 am on April 21st, 2007 21
[...] [GI Korea] 2ID Soldiers Test New Cold Weather Gear Published: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:11:18 +0000 Here is a picture from the 2ID Indianhead Newspaper showing the new cold weather gear being tested up in 2ID land: Judging from the picture, this cold weather gear looks exactly like the old cold weather gear except a different color to match the new Army Combat Uniforms (ACUs).Â* Anyway I guarantee this cold weather gear [...] Read More… [...]
10:32 am on September 9th, 2007 22
GI Korea,
I think the 2nd Tank commander you are thinking of was LTC Brainerd.
I was his BN FSO.
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1:34 pm on September 9th, 2007 23
No it was not LTC Brainerd. I wish I could remember his name but the whole crew with 2nd Tank at the time was quite good and I never had any problems working with them.
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