![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/ColderThanHell.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nI recently\nacquired a copy of \u201cColder Than Hell: a Marine Rifle Company at Chosin\nReservoir,\u201d by Joseph R. Owen, published in 1996 by Random House. The author\nwas a young Marine lieutenant facing his first combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We learn\nfrom this book the importance of dressing for the weather. In the hellish cold of the Korean winter,\nAmerican fighting men at first were issued the wrong coats, gloves, and\nfootgear. Then, they were issued heavy rubber pacs for their feet. The rubber didn\u2019t \u201cbreathe,\u201d their feet\nsweated from their strenuous infantry duties, and then the cold froze their wet\nfeet. A stunningly high toll of frostbite led men to lose toes, fingers, and\nmore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We learn of\nmen caught in kill-or-be-killed violence so savage that they used every weapon\navailable including their bare hands. \nOwen wrote at one point, \u201cAs Van Winkle and Toppel got up, they found\nthemselves caught in the midst of a forward squad of the onrushing Chinese.\nToppel pulled out his pistol and shot into the enemy soldiers. By the light of\nmuzzle flashes and exploding grenades he glimpsed Van Winkle firing his carbine\non automatic and slashing his bayonet at the Chinese swarm. Then he saw the\nburly Van Winkle lift a Chinese above his head and hurl him into a group of\nenemy soldiers. They fell into a heap; Van Winkle and Toppel fired into them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We see the\npain of loss of loved ones. Owen writes of one of his best friends in a moment\nof heated combat, \u201cHe spread out his map and traced the route that I was to\nfollow. Then he fell silent. A Chinese\nbullet had found its target, just below the rim of his helmet, in the center of\nhis forehead. A small black hole\nappeared there. Joe Kurcaba\u2019s dead eyes stared at me for several seconds before\nhe slumped slowly to the ground. I caught him in my arms as he fell and held\nhim for a moment. Then I lowered him gently into the snow. Jesus, God! Joe\nKurcaba. My friend, Joe, who had helped me so much, shown me so much. Who had\ngone to bat for me with Captain Wilcox. Who had been my big brother. Joe\nKurcaba, whom I loved.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We\nvicariously experience the horror of being shot down because we weren\u2019t fast\nenough to stop it. Wrote Owen, \u201cI couldn\u2019t get my weapon on the two Chinese\nabove me fast enough. The one with the rifle put a round into my left shoulder\nthat spun me around. Its impact generated a shock, like a powerful jolt of\nelectricity, that went through my entire body. Damn! How could I be hit?\nAfter all this, how could I get hit? <\/em>I saw the burp gunner trigger a burst\nat me. The snout of his weapon flashed, and I could not lift my feet above the\nknee-deep snow to get out of the path of his bullets. Two slugs tore into my\nright arm. Two more of the electric jolts and my carbine flung itself from my grasp.\nI saw it rise into the air as I fell into the snow\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wounds crippled Joe Owen\u2019s right arm for life, and took him out of his beloved Marine Corps forever. His book, published more than forty years later, is a monument that teaches us how to deal with life-or-death crises. It is why his memories, and those of so many others like him, must never be allowed to fade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Born shortly after World War II, I was a \u201cboomer baby,\u201d and a little boy when the war in Korea broke out. In school I would later be taught that it was a \u201cconflict\u201d or a \u201cpolice action,\u201d but my parents were more honest about it and always called it \u201cthe war in Korea.\u201d \u201cWar\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5942"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5946,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5942\/revisions\/5946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}