Winter Sets In

It was now 2015 and I wanted to rake up any post-holiday sales I could gather. Frigid January temperatures and snow took hold of Maryland like it did it 70-years-ago to the day for the soldiers trudging through the Battle of the Bulge and the Ardennes forest. My final campaign would focus on just that. The wintry weather. 

SNOW AND COLD MAKE A TOUGH FOE IN THE ARDENNES -- "If you can imagine an army fighting its way through the mountains of Garrett county in mid-January, with ten to twelve inches of snow underfoot, the trees encased in frozen sleet, the temperatures 4 or 5 degrees above zero, the skies overcast with a constant threat of more snow - if you can image this, you'll have some idea of the ordeal through which American troops are passing in the battle of the Ardennes." - Lee McCardell - January 12, 1945

IT'S A COLD, UNCOMFORTABLE UPHILL MARCH -- "It's a cold, sunless day. The icy road climbs steadily [. . .] Unwashed, unshaven with ten days' growth of full beards, knitted caps pulled down tightly over their ears, brown GI Turkish towels around their necks for mufflers, they look much older than they are. They shuffle along, dragging their galoshes through the snow in slow paced short steps of tire old me." - Lee McCardell - January 30, 1945