"now"? The date of the report is April, 2001 - this is a pre-9/11 world report, almost pre-Bush.
As a veteran of the military in Alaska, Arctic Light Individual Training, the Northern Warfare Training Center, and as a member of the Army's "50 below club" as well as holder of the "Arctic Scout Award" I can safely say that military operations in the Actic SUCK. Nothing seems to work right. As the temperature drops from -20 F to -40 F you'll watch the humvees die off like ebola patients. During field operations at -60, I watched our Swedish made snow-vehicles (called SUSVs or small unit support vehicles), with their Mercedes engines die off one by one until our battalion of 500 people had only two working vehicles left. It took those vehicles two days to extract all of us from the Arctic and we in the scout platoon were just about the last to go - we spent two days trying to survive with a single tent and stove and 5 gallons of mo-gas to keep us warm during a cold spell where the ambient temp hit -63 (a 5 gallon can of mo-gas usually keeps a Yukon stove running for about 12 hours, not 48 ).
Weapon systems don't work too well either. On one live-fire field op my scout squad was tasked with approaching and identifying an enemy strongpoint. We moved across the terrain, and assembled at our "ORP" (objective rally point). From there, we performed our reconnaisance mission and then returned to the ORP (which was half a mile from the objective just to be safe). At the ORP we called in the Live fire mortar barrage. Range regulations required us to move out of the ORP, though in real life we would not have. So, we pulled back and walked (sort of in an "OOC" manner if you will) back to the ridge on which the mortars were placed. There we sat down, broke out our arctic rations (it was winter - temp was around -40) and watched the mortar guys do their thing.
The first 81 mm HE mortar round did not hit the target - it landed directly in the middle of the small clearing that had served as our ORP. Had this been for real, some of us would likely be dead. Naturally, we were somewhat alarmed. Everyone freaked out - coordinates were checked, the ballistic comp was checked, etc. Turns out the mortar guys had done everything right and so had we - but at -40, the mortar rounds just did not go where they were supposed to go.
Thank god for range safety rules.
In another incident we were tasked with blowing craters in a runway in the yukon in winter. We set up a ring charge of C4 and det cord. We used a double-ignition system, as always.
But at -40, things just don't work right - the det cord blew but the C4 didn't - burning chunks of C4 went flying through the air and scattered all over the ground. No crater - just a lot of smouldering plastic explosive bits. So, ultimately, we had to go out there and collect it all to prevent some poor schmoo in the next training cycle from stepping on a chunk and blowing his foot off. And let me tell you - hunting for smouldering chunks of C4 in the snow at -40 while holding a plastic shopping bag of other bits of C4 and det cord is NOT my idea of a fun day or one that helps me reach my daily goal of SURIVING THE GODDAMN DAY.
Hmmph.
I could go on and relate the time a guy on my rope team didn't make the jump across a crevasse on a glacier we were traversing, or the time that one of our guys broke his neck in a glacial crevasse and died, or ... but I think you get the picture. I freakin' HATE the Arctic (at least as far as military ops go) and I don't envy those guys their job AT ALL.
I may hate our current president - but our folks in uniform deserve mad respect for doing their job.
P.S. Coldest ambient temp I performed ops in during my time was -63 F. Coldest calculated temperature, with wind-chill (for what thats worth) that I did ops in was -115 F. And I am STILL not happy about it. Obviously.
