I was putting on my snowshoes to go hunting Willow Ptarmigan yesterday when it dawned on me; I learned to snowshoe in the Army. I’ve learned a lot of esoteric skills in the Army, some even beyond what you’d assume your normal Soldier would learn. I’ve had classes on road grading and culvert construction. I’ve visited power plants, water treatment plants, commercial farms, airports and rail hubs. I had a really fun couple of days learning basic animal husbandry, trimming goat hooves, checking for diseases and administering animal vaccinations with a cattle crush.

Since I don’t build roads or farm in my civilian life, I haven’t had much chance to use a lot of the esoteric skills I’ve learned through the Army. Some of the information is interesting to know and learn on an academic level, understanding of basic infrastructure of where your food, water and power all come from. The only skills that I apply on a somewhat regular basis are the skills I learned at the coolest (heh) Army course I’ve taken. The Cold Weather Operations Course (CWOC) at Fort McCoy Wisconsin.

The original CWOC course is located up in Black Rapids Alaska, which is about an hour south of Fairbanks. As the military (thankfully) began shifting focus away from dry, desert-like countries, they realized the need to train more troops for cold weather operations in Europe or elsewhere. Due to the limited number of seats in Black Rapids (most of which are slotted for units in already in the state), the Army opened up additional CWOC courses at cold-weather locations in the Lesser 48. Fort McCoy Wisconsin, being one of the coldest bases the Army has, was a prime location.

When we got to Fort McCoy and checked into the barracks we had a fun series of fish-out-of-water moments that common to most of us by now. We did NOT have much in common with the other students. Marines getting cold weather qualifications prior to going on a NATO training mission in Norway. Paratroopers from the 82nd getting their qualifications in preparation for winter airdrops scheduled at remote drop zones all over the Northwest. ROTC cadets who had the bad luck of not getting Airborne or Air Assault. Just about all of them were under the age of 30. Almost none of them had ever deployed overseas. And almost all of them were active duty. Contrasting this to the middle aged, multiple combat deployments, Civil Affairs Reservists, carrying a hodgepodge of personally owned civilian camping gear, hauling coolers of beer into the WWII style barracks.

I was wrong about not learning much. I learned a ton of fieldcraft and cold weather skills that I’d never known, and have used frequently since. I learned how to properly wear the ECWCS (The Extended Cold Weather Clothing System) uniform, something that almost nobody in the Army other than 10th Mountain and units in Alaska seem to know how to do. I learned to cross country skies on the shittiest skies ever invented. How to snow-shoe while hauling a 600lb Akiho sled. That if you wear the leather Army issued “Winter” boots with, Army issued nylon socks your feet will be absolutely destroyed in hours. Which is why you are issued rubber vapor barrier boots and thick wool socks at the course. Keep your canteen upside down to keep it from freezing, don’t bother using a camel back. How to set up and tear down the squad sized artic tent and stove. All valuable cold weather fieldcraft skills. I also learned that a US Marine private will believe just about anything you tell them, if you deliver it with a straight face….. I can be a bit of a practical joker. One of my buddies on the trip, Smitty, shares my love for pranking people. We took one last trip to Walmart the night before we stepped on the field portion of the course. 8 days and nights in the field, with no return to base or resupply for anything other than food, water and fuel. I picked up some bottles of spices; garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, paprika and more to spice up the “Winter MREs” (literally freeze dried “Mountain House” brand camping chow). I picked up an aluminum lightweight hatchet for chopping wood, extra Chapstick, some snacks and a large bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon. Ounces equal pounds and pounds equal pain, so I got the good stuff. If I’m gonna suffer, I’m gonna make it worth it.

As we passed through the camping section, Smitty let out a whoop of joy and grabbed an unfamiliar package. “You ever see these?” he asked, holding up a box of “Funky Flames”. “Nope” I responded. “They’re these little chemical packets you can throw into a fire, and it makes the flames change colors”. I looked at the package. “Cool. I don’t see what use they’ll be on the trip though?” “Seriously?” Smitty laughed “Imma bring a bunch of these and throw them into the fire. Make those dumb Marine kids think I’m a fucking wizard!” “Well…..that’s an awesome idea Smitty. Let’s get 4 packages!” We left Walmart laden with cooking spices, bourbon, funky flames and an extra hatchet. Looking back, our priorities could have been a bit more military focused.

The first few days of the course are spent hauling a 600lb sled, laden with your artic tent, food, water, and other gear with your squad (mine had 9 troops). You are also hauling a roughly 50-60lb pack with your extra clothes, sleeping gear, poncho, tools, rifle, helmet, and everything else you need for over a week in the field. The first day we hauled the sled somewhere between 12 and 15 miles and were dead tired when we stopped that afternoon to set up the tent. The tent is a thick circle of canvas, just tall enough to barely stand up in the middle, with a cast iron stove that runs on a diesel fuel drip. The instructors were deliberately vague on the subject of fuel resupply, so we ran the stove on the lowest setting our first night. It kept the temperature inside the tent at about 30 degrees and when considering the outside temp was about minus 15 with the wind chill it wasn’t that bad. But it still sucked.

Packing up the 2nd morning, Smitty, Ben (the other CA soldier in my squad) and I went around to ask our mates in the other squads how they fared. Our sole buddy in 3rd squad was Gene. Gene is a character, and well skilled in the arts of influence and persuasion despite his handicap of being a medic and not Civil Affairs. Gene was asking the instructors for more diesel fuel for his heater because his team ran it at the 2nd hottest setting and used up almost 2/3ds of their fuel on the first night. When questioned why he convinced his team not to ration their fuel, he slyly replied “Guys, they aren’t gonna let us freeze to death at a cold weather course, it’d make EVERYONE look bad”. His team ended up getting their fuel, so in a way his theory worked out, and most of the other squads adjusted their heaters to a less spartan (though not so luxurious) temperature setting.

We spent a few days more of hauling the sled miles and miles around Fort McCoy, interspersed with classes on wilderness survival, and how to make improvised shelters, snow caves, fires and such. About halfway through the instructors took the sleds, stoves and tents away and we continued the exercise with just our field packs and sleeping bags. My team divvied up some of the extra tools (saws, axes and cooking gear) and set off to the next bivouac site. Not having to man-haul a sled up and down hills was nice, but none of us were looking forward to a night without the tent and heater.

At our first bivouac site, the instructors allowed us to build small heating fires while we split into 2-3 man sleeping groups for our improvised shelters. Smitty, Ben and I were all pretty experienced campers and had what we thought was an adequate shelter built in about 2 hours. The only flaw with our architecturally flawed rustic accommodations is that it looked so much bigger on the outside than it did on the inside. Ben, Smitty and I are not small people. Each of us is more or less 6 feet and about 200lbs. The inside of our shelter could hypothetically comfortably sleep one occupant, uncomfortably sleep 2 occupants and in practice caused the 3 of us to get almost no sleep as we were literally piled on top of each other. Imagine 3 grown men sleeping in a phonebooth made of sticks. There was a vigorous series of rock paper scissors games on who got to sleep in the middle for warmth (Smitty won), near the entrance for ventilation (Ben won), and against the tree (I lost). Smitty spent the rest of the trip reminding us that it was warmest in the middle. The next night at the new bivouac site, the instructors allowed us to build bigger fires and bigger shelters. Noise and light discipline was abandoned and the nights festivities began.

Early in the trip, we realized that our Marines, while great servicemembers, were city folks and didn’t really understand how to make fires and shelters. Which made them prime targets for pranking. After carefully instructing them on what wood burns best, hottest and longest, they would continually return to the campfire with armloads of pine twigs, leaves and one time, a rock. Wood gathering duties were carefully reallocated and soon we had a mighty fire. And thus began the Wizards lessons on maintaining a fire.

Smitty called the Marines over “Guys, you see this really green raw pinecone? If you throw it into the fire, it’ll make a blue flame”. Smitty had palmed a blue funky flame rock into his hand and tossed both into the fire. The Marines gasped in shocked amazement as blue flames shot up through the fire. “That’s so cool! Let’s go find some!” After a few minutes of searching the woods, the Marines came back with a few pinecones to hand over to Smitty The Wizard. He made a show of carefully examining them. Lecturing the Marines on the wholly fictional flaws and virtues of their tributary cones. “Well…. lets see” he said and tossed them into the fire. And of course, the pinecones did what pinecones do when they are thrown into a bonfire. They burned without color or explosion. “Sorry guys, you gotta find one that looks exactly like THIS ONE” Smitty threw another pinecone and funky flame brick into the fire and show repeated itself with blue flames rocketing skyward.

I walked over with a piece of birch bark “You guys see this birch bark? It’ll burn green if you find a piece that’s dry enough” I said as I tossed hunk of birch bark and green funky flame into the fire, causing green flames and a hiss to erupt. At this point, Soldiers and Marines from other campfires were starting to visit our fire to see what all the shouting and colorful flames were about. Gene and a few of the other Civil Affairs guys were in on the joke and hid smirks and smiles. A steady parade of junior Soldiers and Marines would either throw their items into the fire (with no effect), or after careful examination and judgement presented to Smitty, tossed into the fire with a kaleidoscope of pyrotechnical colors to the oohs, ahhs and approving grunts of the Marines and other higher lifeforms.

So loud and fevered were their cries that one of the instructors sauntered over to see what in the hell was going on. I repeated the demonstration, with some dubious sounding chemistry jargon “You see, pine trees sink their roots so deep that they leech the copper sulfate out of soil, hence why the flames are blue! Birch do the same thing, but for potassium, that’s why their flames are green” Our mountain man instructor carefully looked us over and said “Bullshit”. Throwing a handful of pinecones, birch bark, and other “mystical” forest ingredients into the fire. Nothing happened. “You just gotta find the RIGHT ones sir. They gotta be PERFECT” we explained. Our First Sergeant nudged him aside and explained our prank. “Carry on” he said with a smile.

By the end of the 3rd night of alchemy and magic, we couldn’t keep the secret any longer and finally broke to the Marines. I think Smitty was tired of examining a never-ending series of pinecones that every 19 year old Devil Dog was bringing him with the eagerness of a birddog in September. So while some were annoyed at being the subject of our sport, some thought it was hilarious, ALL covertly agreed to play the same pranks on their comrades on their next field exercise. They picked up that additional trick free of charge, though not nearly as valuable as the lifesaving cold weather training.

The culmination exercise was a plunge through a hole sawed through nearly two feet of ice in a lake. The instructors kept you in the water for a few minutes until you experienced mild hypothermia. They gauged this by holding a conversation with you as you clung to the edge of the ice, waiting for the command to extract yourself with the ice picks they provided. It usually took 3-5 minutes before your answers started getting sluggish and not making sense. With blue lips, involuntary muscle spasms and full body shivering, you hauled yourself out like a half dead seal onto the ice. Convincing your legs to work again as you staggered to the warming tent for time by the stove, a change into warm clothes and cups of hot broth or coffee. It’s the coldest I’ve ever been. It’s the coldest I ever intend to be.

I thought about Smitty after finishing my bird hunt. My bird hunt that inevitably turned into an “armed hike” as I didn’t find any ptarmigan or grouse. I left my snowshoes in the truck, went inside and boiled up a pan of red wine with mulling spices to warm up with. After a pitiful dinner, bereft of any wild game, I poured another mug of mulled wine and walked onto my porch to watch the aurora. It pulsed a steady green flame across the sky. It must be leeching the potassium out of the sky I thought with a wry grin. I sat and sipped for another few minutes, watching natures own celestial light show, and at the end, raised my mug in toast to my friend Smitty; The Wild Winter Wizard of the Wisconsin Woods.