China - Burma - India includes Life magazine articles collected and reformatted by the site owner, C.W. Weidenburner. One such is "Mules of Myitkyina," from August 7, 1944.
This photo from the Life article almost makes it look like a walk in the woods. Google images as "mules Burma World War 2" and you will see a little of how bad it in fact could be.
An excerpt:
"Any good Marauder mule skinner defends mules vigorously against any of the usual charges made against them. A mule is not stubborn, he is practical. A mule doesn't want to be disagreeable unless he has to. He just sensibly follows the line of least resistance. If he balks or kicks, he has a reason. Caught in a tight spot, a mule never kicks himself to death or flounders as a horse often does. He sensibly waits for help. A mule doesn't fret and give way to nerves as men and horses do, he makes the beat of things. He is well-behaved under fire and bombing. He never gets shell shock. He has much more endurance than a horse and, unlike the horse, he has too much sense to overeat and overdrink. A mule is in fact, say Merrill's Marauders, a pretty savvy creature all round. As Colonel R.W. Mohri, the Burma mules' vet, puts it, 'A mule's every bit as intelligent as a human being. Probably more so. So to get along with him you need to have, if possible, as much sense as the mule.'"
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