Soldiers from the 1/34th Brigade Special Troops Battalion bring in ice to fill the bilvet for the Polar Bear Plunge, Kuwait. Instead of a freezing ice covered lake, the unit used a blivet, or a rubberized bladder used to transport water, and filled it with around 3,000 gallons of water. To simulate the take-your-breath away temperatures, approximately 500 bags, or approximately 3,000 lbs, of ice were brought to fill the pool. All of this to simulate the water temperatures participants would feel during the plunges back in Minnesota. A surprise too many of the Minnesotans, stereotyped to be acclimated to the record-cold winters of the north, found themselves bracing almost freezing 35 degree Fahrenheit winds the morning of the event … something many thought they would never find during their stay in Kuwait.