Winter Assault

They said the snow fell.

To tell the truth, it really wasn’t that simple.

If this was just another routine snow fall, then McArthur’s beachhead landing at Inchon was just a small skirmish.

Darkly clouded artillery first bombarded the ground with sleet and black ice near Olathe, Kansas, on the afternoon of December 2, 2006. Then the snow circled and swarmed high in the air, gathering speed and unalterable momentum. Once they were properly formed up and the attack order was spread, each individual snowflake then dashed down from the sky, angling in at high speed like a billion miniature Navy FA-18 Hornets making combat carrier landings. The sound they created was deafening and the effect of their combined weight was overwhelming.

Within the first hour of the strike, most of the prominent points of land in the area had been successfully surrounded and/or captured.

It was not as though warnings were not heeded but such tempo and viciousness simply wasn’t to be expected. Preplanned defensive works and man-made structures all quickly fell victim to the unrelenting onslaught. Dangerous ditches, roadside curbs and even small bushes were soon repainted by mischievous wintry Seabees to look of an even height and color, reforming sharp angles of solid concrete and steel into a serene meadow of cool landscape, perfectly camouflaging man-eating deathtraps enveloped by an icy ocean of white.

This assault appeared, by all accounts, to be extremely well coordinated and premeditated, perhaps the product of a sentient yet unseen being.

The local natives quickly realized they could not stand up against such committed and dedicated aggression. They left their plows sitting in the fields, their desks littered, and their mail unopened. Creatures of habit, they pointlessly locked the doors to their offices and businesses behind them.

They retreated and they went home, hoping to live to fight again another day.

Once their long journey home was complete, they cuddled in their living rooms and listened to the muted, distant sounds of nature’s battle outside. Some dreamed of warmer days and safer roadways. Some wondered if the snow would ever melt, if the ice would dissolve, and if their world would eventually dry out like it always had in the past.

Some withheld a strong urge to say that this event might be so substantial that it could permanently change everything, leaving nothing like it once was. Some worried aloud that the snow might never stop. And some wondered if a lasting change would be so bad, if a dramatic altering of the landscape wasn’t long overdue.

But most went to bed that night, on December 2, 2006, near Olathe, Kansas, believing that this hard winter’s storm was merely a temporary, unconscious interruption in their daily lives. They were confident someone somewhere would do the hard work through the night, confronting nature’s danger with the coordinated response of justified men and fortified machines, pushing the frosty attack to the side and back across the barriers.

The received reports, just before midnight, that such a bold counter-move had already begun. So, they climbed in, turned up the heat, wrapped themselves in clean linens and cotton comforters, and they waited.

But, if the truth were to be told, all of them didn’t know what to expect and none of them could agree what it was they were really waiting for.

Cheers,

Mb