What is the worst field environment you have experienced
 

I used the search function and I couldn't find anything that totally covers this topic. I am curious about the suckiest field environment you have been in during training or combat....This would be aside from the enemy...I'm talking about pure sucky environment, whether its arctic training or horrible humidity while fighting off a parasitic infection or just shit garbage heaps in the street...raining for days, no sleep, no food etc.

What is the worst environmental and physically challenging environment you have experienced?


This topic was inspired from reading the Q course experiences

The one I was in. All environments have their challenges and they all have the potential of major SUCK......

Hell had some major suck back at the homestead but that is another part of the life;)

Hmmmm! If I don't count the mountains on Iraq/Iran border, I would have to say the first night in Philly when I was looking for a restaurant. Found what looked like a nice place, walked in, was seated, place a drink order, and realized it was a Gay bar. :eek:

Haha....you don't even need a tab to go there...can be a very challenging environment indeed

NW of Omdurman
 

NW of Omdurman in the summer time.

Sudanese desert and Arctic Alaska sound horrible....I would imagine the lack of light would exacerbate the deep freeze NW of Fairbanks

Above the Arctic Circle. You can do everything right and still wind up with a snow nap. :D

Peacetime: Bundasi, Ghana
Contingency Operations: Thiotte, Haiti
Combat: Helmand, Afghanistan

Mother-in-laws house.

That's the best line in this thread.:D

Coming home at 0300 on a Sunday morning and asking my wife (in all sincerity) how her day was....Not a good place to be....:D

JRTC April of 93, rained for 11 days. It did keep the OPFOR holed up...

Recon operations at Ft. Polk, LA in the middle of August, 1980. 113 degrees.

You must have been on the rotation after me, I was there in March of '93. I don't remember it raining for 11 days, but I do remember it being 13 degrees and freezing rain on our first night "in the box". We were coming from Hawaii, most of us were wearing jungle boots, and we were only carrying one sleeping bag for every three guys. Good times.

It might not have been the absolute suckiest time in the field, but it definitely wasn't the best.

And when did you graduate the Q Course?:eek:
QP's are being asked questions here!!!!:munchin

Your BDE Cdr was SF qualified. I took my team to Hawaii to be your SOF liaison team. Your unit did not have a clue what we could do and did not want any liaison as they were way behind the power curve. We did enjoy the beach each day......

Dusty Duc Co VN!!
DAMN dust got into everything.
We only had 110 gallons of water a day for showers and 10 or 15 guys.
Gave new meaning to a "Whores Bath"!!

BMT

Impossible...they didnt have global warming back then

We were the "SOCCE" Team, had a wild time on infil threading our way on foot between the OPFOR shooting Stingers at the Rangers. With the weather being TU, the bad guys disappeared, so we split into thirds and had eyes and fire missions on both DZs when the OPFOR jumped in. Best part time job ever.

Hohenfels, Germany January 1985.

FYI....field jackets suck.

Training: Dugway Proving Grounds in Jan sleeping/freezing in a bomb crater.

Combat: Staying at the Kuwait International Airfield for a day or two, it was completely destroyed.

Benedict DZ, Bad Toelz, Germany, September 1987: while trying to make it the assembly area in the wee morning hours with a broken back. Either too stupid to realize how badly I was injured or too worried about getting smoked by my gunner and PSG for being late.

I agree, the entire summer of the 1980 heatwave at Ft Benning and Ft Riley, Jump School at 112 degrees or being in an M113 APC in that kind of heat truly sucked.

Although being snowed on while in a recon position and not being able to move for 6 hours without compromising the position is right up there.

As has been said, each environment has its own challenges.

It has been a couple hot dry years for working on the farm in Kansas recently but I'm always reminded by my dad if I complain about the heat that of a long list of places not to be in the summer of 1980 (outside for one thing) ;) Kansas was pretty high on the list.

Training: Winter Exersice Training (WET) in the Colorado Flat Top Wildreness. 150Km suckfest!! Yes our TM SGT Goal was to cross country Ski 150K in 5 day. Trying to recreate a Dumbusa JCET or something. I think out of a 9 man ODA, only 3 of us didn't hit the "wall."

Combat: Helland, AFG December a time frame, GMVs doing a RON and is just pissed down cold, near sleeting rain.

Hmmm....Several klicks from Toelz up in the alps. Nothing but a poncho liner, trying to sleep in the spring rains.
Mountain training in Pinkham Notch in the winter.
Winter warefare training at Camp Drum.
The entire freaking monsoon season in III Corps in '70!:munchin

Ft Lewis,

Doing the 12b Sapper stakes annual TPU field re-cert.

Squad re-cert miserably wet doing an 11 row wire obstacle @0200 the night was so dark no nods, we would have someone hold the pickett at the bottom place the picket pounder on the pickett and then adjust where the hands were clear so we could pound the pickett into that rocky ass ground. Fingers got so cold, wet and throbbing and trying to tie the barbed wire with the 3 wraps.

Then doing a triple standard wire obstacle once we got into Platoon as we shaped the battlefield and had to build a kilometer's worth. And again pounding picketts, tying wire and stringing out concertina.

The work is hard enough but with full battle rattle no night illum, raining, cold, fatigue, burning traps and back, M16-A2 slapping around, and a fence or obstacle that seems to never end.

Been colder in the Mountains and midwest and have been in inhospitably hot places in Africa and Iraq but there is something about those field problems in the Pacific Northwest.

Thailand. It was awful. Great food, cold beer and beautiful women...