I'm working on the book a bit this morning and ran across this story that is now eligible for reposting. As always, lightly edited. Enjoy.

When I got to Korea, I found out how cold things could be. I had lived through a few blizzards in Colorado that got to -20 F or so. Korea got to -60 F more than once the winter I was there.

After the first cold snap, the prediction for a week of temps -40 F or lower scared me a bit. We were going to be in the field. The perfect time for North Korea to attack if they wanted to. (Frozen rice paddies don't stop armor.)

I realized the Army issue long johns weren't going to cut it. Even with BDU's, and the arctic gear. So I started frantically looking for pantyhose on the Korean DMZ.

See, growing up in Colorado and later Illinois where I (regrettably) did some ice fishing, my Dad taught me that he wore panty hose to stay warm. A lot of the guys wore it in the field, because both states got damn cold.

So of course our little PX/Shopette thing didn't have it. No women in the unit, no dependents allowed on the DMZ. The whores in town didn't wear them. I couldn't get a pass south to a proper Korean city to look, and even if I could, I didn't speak shit for Korean, so I wasn't going to have an easy go of it.

I called home and asked Dad to send some. Due to the 1980's mail being slow as hell, I didn't get them in time for the next snap. I DID get them for the first hit at -60 F though. My roomies saw me pulling them on and started giving me shit. Word got out. /u/BikerJedi is a fag cuz he wears pantyhose.

When they started bitching how cold their legs were I laughed at them. They weren't giving me shit anymore and wanted to know if I had more. Nope. Sorry assholes. I'm not telling you I have more back in the barracks, and I'm damn sure not selling them.

That winter sucked, but I felt nice and toasty for most of it.