The military is a different kind of "cold".

Team in the house. Iraq, 2008

"Oh my God, dude. I can't feel my face"

This next story might not be sexy, but I'm willing to bet too many of you can relate to it.

In the wonderful landscape of northern Iraq, six teammates and myself were creeping our way through the dark to a small village outside the city of Samarra. We were doing the typical "low and slow" to avoid alerting anyone to our presence. We were about a hundred meters off to the side of a main road and spaced-out in a single file patrol headed to our objective to establish eyes on a village. This particular area was rumored to have some notable bad guy activity that was very active at night. This could mean anything from planting roadside bombs or holding meetings for high level enemy leaders. Our job that night was to sneak in, camp out and observe, report and/or engage any enemy activity we saw.

I have to be honest, I was pretty excited. This was exactly the cool shit I left college and signed up to for. Earlier that day we cross loaded ammo, took our patches off our uniforms, grabbed a 240, a mini-14 and later made our quiet long hump to a small five or six home village a few clicks away. For the record, when your tabbed up patrol leader smiles at you and say's "make sure to bring some snivel and wet weather gear", with a grin on his face, don't laugh because nothing you're about to experience will be funny.

Through the cold and dark we moved to our objective, stopping every so often to duck down when the occasional headlights moved in the distance. Eventually, we came to our target. It was a concrete house with metal doors and bars on many of the windows. During an hour when most decent people are sleeping, we announced ourselves, made our way into the home and began our introduction to the Iraqi family who lived there. We identified all occupants, stated our business and confiscated all communication devices.

The plot was about to thicken, though. This was a house full of women. We couldn't find a single man in the entire home.

Keep in mind, this is the dead of the night in our worst area for enemy activity, (hence why our leadership wanted us there), and all the men were...gone?

When we inquired with the women about the absence of all the men, they simply told us they were all "away" and at work. This is when I became sure that we weren't just in the same village as the bad guys, but were probably right in their home, too.

We gathered up the family, secured the home and began preparing for the next few days of "observation" from our new residence. The worst particular part of this story was going to be the main post for guard,...the rooftop. While this would prove to be the shittiest experience of the whole mission, I'm going to be honest, we couldn't complain too much. The sister element that was sent a few miles away to support us was tasked with taking over the top floor of a building with no roof at all. Did I mention it started to rain too?

I still remember my first turn to head up on that roof. Climbing up a ladder from inside the house I could already feel the chill of the air outside wisping through layers of gear I was wearing. It was a shock from the get-go and it stayed that way for the duration. Have you ever felt that real stinging cold before? The kind that actually not only feels freezing but burns your skin at the same time too? The kind that doesn't make you shiver but makes you clinch and cramp up. It was that kind of cold.

The rooftop. Iraq, 2008

I made my way on top of the roof and crawled to lay down flat against the concrete next to my teammate and tried to stay as low profile as possible. There, two men at a time, we endured the second-by-second freezing shifts manning the 240 and a mini-14 over the course of a few days. It's not so bad when the sun is up, but nighttime fucking sucked. It just straight fucking sucked. I won't even tell you about my male anatomy that was resting against the concrete I was laying on.

We spent the next few days doing this. Two up, four down. Two up, four down. And so on and so on. On the second night I watched my teammate go up for his shift, then, just a few minutes later, he came right back down. He had his hands together, body shivering and braced up, his chin tucked tight into his clothing and then said, "oh fuck. I gotta come back in".

The cold had just taken its first casualty. He was brought to the heat to rewarm, and someone was going to have to replace him. The eyes of our team leader began shifting around the room and then stopped right on me. Then, he got a big grin on his face before he said, "Doc. You're up".

For the record, my cold weather casualty teammate wasn't exaggerating. From the moment I got up there I thought I might lose fingers after this mission. I crawled my way next to my teammate, Andrew, and we joyfully endured our trauma bond experience on the stinging cold concrete roof of what was most likely an enemy insurgent's home.

This continued and continued. We pulled shifts, maintained coms windows and we waited and we watched. Then, early into the last evening, we got the radio transmission we had all been waiting for.

Exfil!

Our spirits soared immediately. We were moving with purpose, packing our gear, collecting any trash and getting ready to return items to the family and pay them for their time. I was just so happy I wasn't going to climbing that fucking ladder again. I swore to everything in the universe that if I ever got out of the Army I would never be cold again. Only I wasn't. Exfil was pushed to the right and there was just enough time for one more shift.

Once our misery was officially at an end, we filed up inside the house by the main door in a loose stack formation. In full kit again, we were getting ready to "low and slow" it out into the darkness again. Only this time, it was to leave. Thank God! Our high priority mission to disrupt enemy activity had resulted in no contact whatsoever, was over and we were finally headed back out of the cold for hot showers and some sleep.

Tightly filed up inside the house by the large metal front door, we got the call on the radio that pick up was getting close. That's when our team leader gave the word and we filed out, one by one, into the front courtyard and towards the main road. As soon as I stepped outside, I could see our vehicles IR lights in the distance through my nods. It was official, we were leaving! "Thank god", I thought.

We made it about ten steps into the courtyard and then, "BOOOOOOOOMMMMMM! Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack!

Our whole team dropped to ground and went cheek to stock. A second or two passed before we heard a second sound, "Ahhhhhhhhhh!" They were screams of a grown man that was obviously in pain. Then again, "Aaaahhhhhhh!"

The next thing we knew there was loud shouting and screaming in Arabic followed by automatic weapons cracking off in the distance directly to our three-o clock. All of this coming from a field directly across the road we had been watching.

"Stay down and shut the fuck up! Nobody knows were here!" my team leader looked back and whispered to us while lying in the prone.

The automatic fire was heavy and clearly AK's. It lasted a good minute with lots of shouting before it suddenly stopped. We all waited, looked at each other from the ground and then our team leader hand signaled to us and whispered, "Alright! Let's go! Now!"

We all got up and low file rushed our way out of the front courtyard and through an open field leading to the main road where our vehicles were to pick us up. Once I made it inside the back of an MRAP, I locked the door, turned to the people in the back and asked, "Did y'all hear that shit?"

They only replied, "hear what?"

The whole ride back I was wondering who had just gotten in that ambush/firefight, how close they had been to us and how we never saw them? It sounded like one of our local partner forces was ambushed by insurgents. I was also realizing it wasn't my place to be questioning anything we did or didn't do. Just to execute when told and move out. We never did get any more information about the incident.

Once we made it back to our FOB, dismounted our gear and grabbed a shower, we were called to our team leaders chu for a "team meeting". It was there I learned even more that I was at the bottom of the pecking order in all things Army and my job really was just doing what I was told. This is also when we were told that the cold "really hadn't been that bad" and there had never be another incident of someone needing to be replaced during a watch again. All you needed to say was, "Roger that".

Still, rotating on that roof in Iraq in the winter of 2008 was hands down the shittiest experience I've ever had in cold weather that I can remember. I would even attend a selection class in later years in the month of December, and it still wouldn't compare. I always tell people, there's cold and then there's military cold.

All seriousness, winter storms might suck, but at least now I can be inside if I want to. Y'all stay warm and grateful.

I know I am.