M113 and M577 armored vehicles waiting to off-load. (DOD)

The Main Body Arrives in the Desert
("I'm here to take you across 100 miles of trackless desert, but if you're battalion doesn't roll out when the last tank moves by, you are on your own.")

Finally, after three weeks in the desert, a "leader's recon" group from 5-18IN(M)’s main body arrived. I made them several copies of my master map of where everything was and what they could provide. Since this was 1991 that had to be done by hand. I took them out to the location, a couple miles away, that Brigade had assigned us as our Battalion Assembly Area. The center-mass of our battalion area was a marked, in the featureless landscape, by a column of stones that I’d made days previous by stacking up flat rocks.  

The Advanced Party had been sent to Saudi Arabia with no understanding as to what they were getting into, and no experience in deploying to distant regions. We had survived the insanity of Tent City, we had collected our vehicles and made an incredibly dangerous trip to a site several times more distant than any roadmarch we’d ever made. I did as much as I could to map out the logistics of the area, I’d worked hard to keep our force supplied, I’d tried darn hard to be reasonably prepared for crises that didn’t really develop, and I’d irritated the shit out officers both in our Brigade and not. At the time I was absolutely appalled at how many officers behaved as if this was just one more exercise and the threat was notional. I was young, had strong feelings about, well,  everything, and saw issues through the very certain lens of youth.

Most of the Advanced Party’s efforts had been, not to prepare the ground for the arrival of the battalion main body, but to just help keep the Brigade Advance Party supplied and functioning.  So, in retrospect, I’m not sure that our effort was useful.

One day I was “the man”, and the next day I was a coffee boy. A week later, about 28Jan91, I disbanded the Advanced Party and sent the squads back to their parent companies. I became one of the young officers in the Battalion S3 (Ops) shop. Theoretically I was the “Day” Tactical Operations Center (TOC) Watch Officer.

Greg Weaver, who’d become a great friend during our weeks together, went back to his S2 (Intelligence) shop. Fortunately, our duties had us often in the same place. 

As a youngster, I’d been a Marine for 6yrs. Most of that time had been spent in or near a Battalion Tactical Operations Center. Those had been exciting years constantly getting challenged by new responsibilities. It had been really fun having information pouring at me through a firehose. I'd had to concentrate to furiously to instantly understand what was meant by a particular message, to grasp the larger import of the message within the context of the current notional fight, and to make sure that everyone that needed to know about the latest message, received and understood it as well.  Here I was years later, right back in a Battalion TOC, but without any responsibilities greater than to keep the coffee flowing.

5-18IN(M) had a terrific S3 officer, MAJ McLean, who I grew to admire more each week. Also in the 3 shop was a strong CPT as the “S3A”, another Infantry LT, the NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) LT, and me. Both the other LT’s were perfectly nice and knew what they were doing. I envied the other Infantry LT a bit. He had been in the battalion for years and therefore had strong relationships with everyone. My time in the battalion consisted of 3 weeks that occurred 2 months prior.

A week later, another CPT showed up at 5-18IN for no reason I understood and ended up also in our S3 shop. He was a big charismatic black guy and seemed thoroughly competent. We had too many officers in the S3 shop and I was bored.

The only breaks from the tedium were giving classes on the LORAN device, and going out and finding convoys that were lost.

There was one CPT at Brigade that was a shit. I don’t remember his name. He had this game where he’d call up the subordinate units to come get some documents, but once you got there, he’d make you wait. One day I let my irritation become obvious and he told me “I don’t care how long you wait. I’ll give you the order when I’m good and ready”. That made me so angry that I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut, my mouth sometimes being a danger to my career ambitions. I was furious at the bastard, safe behind the disparity in rank, for playing this game with me over and over again. Jesus what a cocksucker.

What I saw, when the Brigade CPT fucked with me, was the high school bullies that used to fuck with me constantly. Getting harassed by much bigger and much more aggressive kids in HS essentially charted my whole life. Obsessing over endurance sports, lifting weights, karate, joining the Marines, and then becoming an Army Ranger....it all traces back to getting hassled and knocked around in HS by big shitheads. Bullies make me crazy. Not, "I'm going to be really mad" crazy, but "where can I find an ax?" crazy.

When I got back to 5-18IN I told my boss MAJ McLean of the latest episode of “shithead at brigade is on a power-trip and plays fuck fuck games with Bn Liaison officer”.

In retrospect, I was kind of a hothead. I’d not worked with MAJ McLean very long at this point so he would have been a little wary of lending me his unconditional support. It’s unlikely he called up to Bde and told them that “if the asshole CPT keeps fucking with LT’s, he’s going to get his ass kicked.”

The purpose of Brigade HQ is to help the battalions accomplish their missions, just like it’s the purpose of the Battalion HQ to help the company’s accomplish their missions. Often shithead staffers at “higher” get the idea that everyone in the subordinate orgs work for them, instead of vice versa. This is true in almost all hierarchies, military and civilian. Our higher HQ is supposed to be helping us, not engaging in sophomoric power plays. If your company, I'm talking civilian world here, is subordinate to a corporate HQ outfit, call up someone in that higher HQ, call them up right now and ask them about some issue they're supposed to be working for you. Pay close attention to the the HQ type's tone and word choice. Are they behaving as if they work for you, or if you work for them. Often it's the latter.

My ability to stand my ground against the CPT at Brigade was pretty limited. I was new, I was junior, and so I was going to have to suck it up and let him jerk me around. If I had been more clever, I’d have written down his name so I could track him down  now, 30yrs later, and call him a fuck-stick.

Heaters in tents.
The Germany-based units were more attached to personal comforts than I was used to. The Marines weren’t too oriented on personal comfort. My only Army experience, after a year of training at Ft. Benning, had been in Korea and they had not been obsessed with personal comfort either. The Korean Winter was darn cold. During one winter exercise it once hit 20deg below zero. It was so cold that we had problems getting enough water because our canteens would freeze solid in an hour. In Korea, on exercises, we never used any kind of heat source because we were always battling against our tankers, and they had the thermal sights that we lacked. Any heat would have given away our positions.

The Germany-based units, however, seemed pretty attached to personal comfort.

Let me back up a bit. When the Advanced Party first got to the desert, some of the battalions set up heaters in the tents. I’d never seen such heaters before. To my surprise, 5-18IN had brought a couple of these heaters, but I didn’t let the guys set them up. The weather was quite mild. Heaters struck me as absurd. We were Infantry, for chrisssakes.

 
WOOSH. Tent gone.

Except for the light rain during the roadtrip, the first week in the desert had been quite dry. Our tentage was dry as a bone. Heaters and extremely dry tentage are a bad combination. It only took a couple days before one of the other battalions burned down a tent, a GP Medium, which is a pretty big tent. The tent burst into flame with a “WOOSH” and in two seconds it was entirely gone. Not a 5-18IN tent though, so not my problem. It was the second week in the desert when we got the real rain.

Weeks later, when the rest of 5-18IN showed up, LTC Neely, the Battalion Commander, went on a terror re. how our tents must have heaters. It was “Taking Care Of Soldiers”, a phrase that Army leaders routinely used to justify bad ideas. The emphasis on heaters was hard to understand. The weather was wonderful. I spoke up and mentioned that “The Advance Party had a tent burn down. The cotton tents get very dry here and the heaters become a fire hazard.” I saw Greg nodding his head, but the concern didn't seem to resonate with anyone else.

Two days later the first 5-18 tent burned down. It was treated as a fluke. Everyone was directed to be especially careful with the heaters. Two days later the second tent burned down. The heaters were then removed from the tents.
 
No one in the history of the world has ever looked at a LT and said “You were right. We should have listened”. Greg Weaver and I shared a knowing look.

Live from Rihad.
When the Air War started the media coverage really ramped up. The press conferences in Riyadh were a continual source of amusement for us. The military was unwilling to confirm that night follows day. Most of the questions coming from the press were idiotic.

Reporter: “Colonel, is one of the objectives of the bombing campaign to damage the Iraqis psychologically?”
<Of fucking course that was one of the objectives.>

Spokesman: “I’m sorry, but I can’t discuss psychological operations.”
<For crying out loud, confirming that getting bombed takes a psychological toll would not be providing insights into plans and operations.>

Reporter: “Why can’t you discuss it?”

Spokesman: “If I told why I can’t discuss it, I’d be discussing it.”

Bringing our armored vehicles to the units.
In February Division told us that HETs (Heavy Equipment Transporters) would be dropping off our vehicles on Tapline Road, and that those vehicles would then move 100 miles across the trackless desert to join up with their units. When I heard this, I burst out laughing. The very idea that hundreds of armored vehicles would somehow be dropped off near the Iraqi border and navigate themselves to us was crazy. Those armored vehicle drivers were the youngest soldiers in the battalion. Many of them rarely ventured out of their home county, most of them didn't even own cars. It was entirely possible that few of them had ever navigated anywhere in their whole lives.

The idea, driving this plan, was getting the most of the few HETs in theater. If a HET came all the way out to us, it would be a two to three day round-trip, the hard part being finding us in the desert. If, however, they dropped off the vehicles somewhere up on Tapline Road, the HET runs would have a one day turn-around back to the Port of Dammam.

We were anxious to get our armored vehicles just as soon as we possibly could. Near as we could tell, we were only hours away from being told to move up to jump-off positions on the Saudi/Iraq border. Since we didn't have any armored vehicles yet, this was a source of some concern.

As the Battalion HQ officers discussed this, I piped up with "I can go get the battalion's vehicles and bring them straight here." The Battalion senior officers looked at me warily.

"Scott, how are you going to navigate across 100 miles of desert?", they asked.

"Sir, I can do it. I've been navigating around the desert now with compass and odometer for six weeks."

The XO (Battalion Executive Officer) asked "How will you find HET drop off point?"

"I'll go up and down Tapline Road until I find hundreds of HETs dropping off armored vehicles. How hard can it be to spot that?"

According to Division the HET drop off site was located at Logistics Base A. Specifically, I was told "South side of the road near Log A. You’ll see it." The problem turned out to be that Logistics Base A wasn't actually a specific location like the word "base" would imply. It turned out to be a region of desert centered on a 20 mile stretch of Tapline Road about the size of your average county.  

The other part of the plan was for a second HMMWV to come along for communications support. There was no way our FM radios were going to span 100miles, so the other radio HMMWV would position itself at the halfway point and retransmit 2x 50mile paths. There was no way our FM radios were going to span 50miles either, but there was no downside to having another HWWWV, and I was all hot to go do something useful. The radio idea was sure to fail but if my HMMWV broke down, I figured I could just jump into the radio retrans HMMWV and Charlie-Mike (Continue Mission). 

The radio HMMWV broke down after about 30miles. We called back to the TOC, asked for a maintenance to come out and help them, and continued our mission.

When we’d been on Tapline Rd six weeks prior, we’d been in a two mile long convoy, so no one expected us to move out of the way. High speed traffic, often >100mph, had passed us both day and night on the left or on the right shoulder. Sometimes zig zagging thru our formation to pull it off. It was really quite exciting. This time was so much worse.

Since we were only in a single HMMWV, on-coming drivers expected us to move over if they perceived us to be an inconvenience. Not drivers approaching us from behind expecting us to move over, but on-coming drivers up ahead expecting us to move over. Because they were coming right at us, the rate of closure was often >150mph. Consider how crazy that is. Some lunatic is coming straight at you in your lane at a rate of closure of 150mph and your teenage driver has to make a decision as to his role in this cooperative effort to get the three vehicles past each other without adding to destroyed cars down the embankment. Because it's all happening so fast, there's no opportunity to make a "new plan." Choose to stay in your lane, get on the shoulder, or dive down to the desert, whatever your plan is, it needs to be right the first time. There's no "do over" when you're dead.

On numerous occasions there was some truck coming at us at 80mph and suddenly we'd see a faster car or truck move into our lane to pass the oncoming truck. Then we'd see a car, moving faster still, emerge from behind that on-coming truck, and the car would move even farther to their left to our shoulder in order to pass the other two. Our only option was to dive down the embankment to the desert floor and dodge all the rolled wrecks, and their debris fields, until we could regain control of the HMMWV. Then we'd sit there for a moment, engine idling, and take some calming breaths.

It was really quite frightening.

Of course, cars and trucks were coming up behind us, at high rates of speed, and passing also.

As a leader, it's considered bad form to radiate terror. The leader is always being watched for signs of weakness.  If, when times are heard, the leader seems to be an inexhaustible source of endurance and courage, those around him will dig deeper to find their own reserves of endurance and courage. On the other hand, if the example the leader sets is that of an undisciplined slug, that will infect those around him and they'll become undisciplined slugs also. Likewise, if the leader shows fear, that too will infect those around him and in their terror they'll quit functioning. 

I tried to cringe as stealthily as I could.

I imagined that the HET Drop-off site would have hundreds of huge HETs and a good fraction of that in additional wheeled vehicles. It would be a beehive of activity as crews unloaded their armored vehicles and then lined them up in long columns. We also needed to be watching on-coming traffic for loaded HETs. One of them might be carrying a 5-18IN vehicle and we could follow that to the 3rd Armored Division HET Drop-off site. Of course, I couldn't just follow any HET with an armored vehicle. Only a HET with a 5-18IN vehicle could be trusted to lead us to the right place.  All vehicles in the battalion had bumper #'s stenciled, fore and aft, that identified them as 5-18IN.

 We made a fast run down Tapline Road watching for any collection of HETs. I figured that if we didn’t find the Drop-off Site, we’d start making our way back up Tapline Road, stopping at units and inquiring about the mysterious 3rd Armored Division HET Drop-off site. Watching on-coming traffic carefully, we were poised to pull a fast U-turn and give chase to any HET that passed us with an armored vehicle. That would require a dive down into the desert, turning sharply in a spray of sand and racing back up on to the highway to charge after the huge lumbering rig.

By noon we were no longer driving past little groups of tents so I made a command decision that we'd gone beyond the boundary of Log Base A. We made a U-turn and started making our way back.

We started stopping at units to inquire re. the mysterious 3rd Armored Division HET drop off point. About every mile, on both sides of the elevated highway, there was a collection of tents marking a unit of some sort. This took a while at each unit because we had to find some responsible adult that might have good info. One can't just intercept some Private First Class (PFC) walking away from a shitter and ask a Division level logistics question. PFC's don't care about Division Logistics. You could be standing in the HET drop off site and the PFC could say "never heard of the place."

Several times, while stopped at a unit, my driver watching the highway would yell "SIR, A HET" and the high speed pursuit would commence. We had to get close enough that, with binoculars, we could read the bumper # stenciled in letters about four inches tall on the Armored vehicle.

HET, Heavy Equipment Transporter carrying an M1 tank. Note the size of the rear ramps. (DOD)

None of the armored vehicles we were finding belonged to 5-18IN.

After several hours going from tent group to tent group, interrupted only by mad dashes to chase down a HET, we found one carrying a 5-18IN(M) Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The HET driver was Egyptian, spoke no English at all, and seemed completely lost. Using hand and arm signals we managed to communicate that the Bradley was ours and he made it clear that he wanted to offload it and give it to us. I was shocked that they’d sent this Bradley out with no American at all. How could anyone have expected this Bradley to get to its unit?

We didn’t want to off-load the Bradley just yet because there were at least another 100 vehicles, mostly Bradleys, that we needed to find. Using the International hand and arm signals for "the situation is chaos, please be patient a while", we got the Egyptian HET driver to follow us and we continued our search for the Divisional HET Drop-off site.

Of course, with a heavily loaded HET following us, we lost our ability to do rapid U Turns and race after other HETs.

A couple hours after nightfall we were ready to pack it in. We were exhausted from the stress of staying alive on Tapline Road, chasing down HETs, and stopping to inquire at every unit, “by chance do you know where the 3^rd Armored HET drop off point is?”

We pulled off the highway and down to the desert floor at one last cluster of lights that marked an encampment. I told the guys to drive the Bradley off of the back of the HET because the Egyptian HET driver seemed increasingly desperate to leave, and I was started to worry about a scenario where he took off for home, our Bradley still chained on top of his trailer. 

I worried that my fabulous idea to bring the vehicles across the desert ourselves, as opposed to depending on Division, was unraveling. Now that the Bradley was coming off of the HET, our ability to keep wandering around to find the HET drop off point had been reduced considerably. We'd tried damned hard to make this work, but not everything succeeds. It had turned out that not only was the Division HET drop off point un-marked, but apparently no one in Log Base A had ever even heard of it. These HETs were supposed to be offloading this afternoon, but we would have found them easily, if that had been the case. I wondered "how the hell were the first couple HETs, coming from the Port of Dammam, going to find the drop off site if there was no big sign alongside the road?"

Unless this last outfit positively knew where the damned 3AD HET Drop-off Site was, we were going to camp here with them for the night and maybe go home tomorrow having found only the single Bradley. We needed to be inside of someone's perimeter for the night. I didn't want to spend the inky-dark night alongside Tapline Road all by ourselves. Someone might plow into us at 120mph.

As the guys unchained the Bradley from the HET trailer, I walked towards the unit a couple hundred meters away. I was so tired. I stepped over a finger-drill of a single strand of wire and towards the guy that seemed to be pulling some kind of guard duty.

It turned out that this was an MP unit. I don’t know what it is about MPs. I always seem to bring out the worst in them. Despite evidence to the contrary, I remain optimistic that somewhere there are MPs that can react to the unexpected with reasoned good judgment. 

<in a "hail fellow well met" tone of voice>“Hi, my name’s LT Gress. I’m looking for a spot in Log Base A that has been designated as a 3rd Armored HET drop off site. You have an Ops or Logistics cell I could talk to? I’m hoping someone might know where this drop off site is. Otherwise, I need to coordinate with y’all cause we’d like to rack out here for the night.” I'd had this same exchange with numerous other collections of tents. All that was different about this last time is that I was worn out and disappointed.

MP: <stern tone>“You came through our wire. Go back out and come to our gate. Then stop and be identified.”

Me: <tone of surprise and confusion> “Huh?”

MP: Puts a flashlight in my face. <stern tone>"You came through our wire. Go back out and come in at the gate. Stop there and be identified.”

Me:<resigned tone> “Dude, I’m tired. I don’t see a gate. I identified myself. Can you let me go talk to someone in your TOC pls?”

MP: <stern tone> "Go back out the way you came. Come to our gate. Stop and be identified."

Irritated as fuck at inflexible tiny-brains the world over I trudged back the way I came. I stepped back over the sad string of wire, moved laterally a couple meters, and come towards the gate again. It was hard to know if I was on their "road." It was dark, for chrissakes.

MP: ”Place your ID card on the ground and take 4 paces back”.

Shaking my head, I thought “Jesus Christ, Wtf is wrong with MP’s?" I could hear the Bradley behind me approaching us. The guys inside the Bradley were probably  figuring that we were going to park the the beast inside the wire. In the darkness, the Bradley would not have been very visible until it got pretty close.

Apparently I didn’t move fast enough because the MP felt that it was necessary to repeat his guidance re. me putting my ID card on the ground and stepping back. I dug my wallet out of my cargo pocket, found my ID card and, trying to hide my irritation, tossed it on the dirt in front of me. I took a couple steps back.

The MP stepped forward, and using his flashlight, located my ID card in the dirt, picked it up and studied it. Then his eyes and the flashlight went back into my face.

MP: “Someone will come out and escort you in.”

Me: “Come on man. I’ve played your game. You’ve identified me and I’m tired of you talking to me like we’re drinking buddies. Pls let me though and point me towards your TOC.”

MP: “Someone will come out and escort you in.”

Me: “That’s sir. Someone will come out and escort you in, sir”.

MP: <grinding his teeth> “Sir”.

15min went by. I was so tired that the 15min seemed to take forever. I very much wanted to curl up in my sleeping bag and get some rack time. The Bradley was, by then, a dark looming presence right behind me. My guys were in the driver and commanders hatches. Another MP showed up to provide the gate guard with morale support.

Me: “Ok guys, you’re killing me. I’ve been here for 25min now just trying to take a simple question to your TOC. This is ridiculous. Pls point out your TOC and I’ll head there. If you want to escort me there, that’s fine too.

MP: “You are not going in”.

Me: “What are you going to do? Shoot me with your M16? I’ve already identified myself. You know I'm a friendly.”

MP: “We could take you out with a machine gun too, sir."

Me: “You have got to be kidding. Now it’s my gun is bigger than your gun? What, are we in grade school?” I turn around towards the Bradley. Raising my voice, “Jones, charge the 25mm pls. Stand ready."

This was all so stupid. Of course we had no ammo for the 25mm and of course we weren’t going to fire upon any MPs, no matter how much they might deserve it. But the guys in the Bradley had heard this exchange. I just needed Jones to have the Bradley make some scary sounds that could be imagined as chambering a round in the 25mm cannon.

From the Bradley, we all heard “Kaching, kaching." Jones might have been hitting something with a wrench, I really had no idea.

I turned back to the MPs. I hoped very much that there was enough light that they could see my dramatically raised eyebrow. The MPs got less surly, said something on a radio, and someone in the tents hustled out to us. “Follow me” gestures were made. I headed in that direction. One of the gate guard guys walked with me, so we became a group of three. The MPs seemed to walk slow though. Like maybe they wanted to window shop. I was in a hurry. I had stuff to do. I’m always in a hurry.

The MPs started falling behind. One of them said “Stay with us sir." I ignored him and kept going. “Stay with us sir!” he repeated. I turned.

Me: “Ok you two. I’m in a hurry. You stay with me.”

MP: “You stay with us sir."

Me: “Or what? You’re going to shoot me? Sir, some officer came to visit our TOC. We wanted to move slow. So we shot him. Is that how it’s going to go guys?"

In retrospect, looking back 30yrs later, I think that the MPs were having problems adjusting to their new reality. In a garrison environment the MP were "police" and wore the standard police accoutrements of badge, shiny leather utility belt, and holstered pistol. As such, MPs were very accustomed to deference and obedience.  This, however, was a war. In this environment an MP was just one more Combat Support pogue. Reflexively obeying an MP would be like reflexively obeying a cook. Sure, the cook might have the best idea, but you'd do what the cook said because he had the best idea. You wouldn't do it because the cook was "the man to be obeyed."

With my two grumpy MPs in tow, we finally got to the MP TOC. They had me sit. My escort stepped into an adjacent tent and I could hear them complaining to someone. Ten more very long minutes went by. Then some big guy walked into the tent, past me, and thru the door where the complaining is going on. I didn't really get much of a look at him. Finally the big guy came back out to me.

Big guy, reasonably civil tone: “CPT, did you threaten the MPs at the gate with a Bradley?”

Me: “Sir, I’m LT Gress, your pups at the front gate and I weren’t pleased with each other because I’m in a hurry and they wanted to mark time. They initiated a “my gun is bigger than your gun” contest with a guy with a Bradley. Any threat to them was a product of their youthful imaginations.”

That out of the way, the MP Company Commander turned out to be a really nice guy and we got along like old drinking buddies. To my huge surprise, the MP Commander said that there was some Major in the area that had something to do with armored vehicle drop offs. The Major worked out of a yellow CONEX a mile or two down the road and slept in their MP compound at night. "HOLY SHIT," I thought. It was like winning the lottery.

I found the Major and he said that the HETs would be arriving the next morning. I went back out the front gate to report the news to my crew and make sure our Egyptian HET driver got sent on his way. Which is when I was introduced to the next problem.

The back of the HET trailer had big heavy ramps that winched up into place. While winching one of the ramps up, a ½” dia. steel hinge pin had snapped. Now the ramp wouldn’t pivot up off of the ground. The damned thing had to weigh 1000lbs, but the HET couldn't move if we didn't get it up into place. The HET driver had spent the last 30min trying to work out a solution. The crew and I tried damned hard to lift that ramp back up in place, to repay the HET driver for his efforts on our behalf, but with the hinge busted, we just couldn't do it. We were shaking with muscle exhaustion from the effort. Fuck. I owed this guy. I had to figure out a solution.

Out of desperation I looked around, in the darkness, for something we might use to help with the busted hinge pin. The decades of Tapline Road crashes led to debris fields on both sides of the road. I found what looked to be a small spike, maybe 3/8th" diameter. I came back to the HET trailer and played around with the spike a bit. I was thinking that I could make it work if the spike was shorter. “How the hell might I to cut this thing?”, I wondered. Then inspiration hit me.

The M9 bayonet has a wire cutter fitting on its scabbard. I’d never actually used it before, but its “gotta be figure-out-able”, I thought. The M9 bayonet wire cutter isn't designed to cut metal anywhere near as thick as that spike so it took some doing. Since the bayonet itself is one of the jaws of the mechanism, I had to be careful or I'd lose the fingers on my right hand. After that it'd be the left hand that got the Valentines Day cards.

15min later, smiles all around, the HET driver drove up the slope to Tapline Road and headed East back to the port.

My crew drove the HMMWV into the MP site and we set up some cots for the night. We left the Bradley padlocked up just outside the wire. It was probably just a coincident that the Bradley's 25mm cannon remained pointed at the MP guardshack. We slept in and had breakfast with the MPs.

M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. 25mm chain gun, 7.62 coaxial, pair of TOW anti-tank missiles, three to eight irritated Infantrymen in the back wishing they could get the hell out. The main gun stabilization isn't as slick as the M1 so it can't, while on the move, put 25mm rounds into a 2km distant car window all day long. It can fire at 200rds/min, however, and a lot of those would hit the car, no matter that the Bradley crew is banging around inside like pebbles in a shaken can.  This is a post-war picture and we're checking out a damaged Iraqi tank. This Bradley is D31, mine as the Platoon Leader of 3rd Plt, D Co. Note the name Jarhead written on it's side.

In the morning we drove the HMMWV and Bradley down to the Major’s yellow CONEX box. Pretty soon HETs started showing up. These HETs had American soldiers in the passenger seats. There were also some American trucks and HMMWVs full of soldiers and leaders. Things were really looking up.

I designated a HET unloading site for 3Bde and a 5-18IN vehicle Assembly Area. As the HETs came and went, the Assembly Area started to fill.

Some Major from Division showed up and wanted to run things his way. As far as I was concerned, he was welcome to do whatever he wanted, as long as he left 5-18IN vehicles alone. Division had never mentioned a plan for bringing the vehicles across the desert. In the absence of any Division plan, we'd told Division, through Brigade, about our plan to send an officer up to Tapline Road to fetch the vehicles. We got no response to that at all. Now it looked like Division had improvised something at the last minute. I had to make a sudden unexpected decision whether or not to stand my ground against this unknown Major, or to show my belly and cede him control, having no idea how well he could navigate. I didn't know him, so I didn't trust him.

Then a LTC showed up and he wanted also wanted to take charge. That made up my mind. I had been charged with bringing the 5-18IN vehicles home across the desert, and that's what I was going to do. The other officers were welcome to take charge of any other unit's vehicles that they wanted, but in a couple hours 5-18IN vehicles was heading out.

Then a HMMWV came hustling towards me. It turned sharply and slewed in the soft soil. An enthusiastic 1LT jumped out and exclaimed that he was from Division and was there to “get our tracks to us in the desert”. "Sheeze", I thought, "stand in line dude."

As each HET showed up, most of them for our 3rd Brigade, I pointed the HET driver to an offloading location and told the American in the passenger seat where his battalion collection point was. The next hours were very busy as a constant stream of HETs showed up. I found the senior person from each of the 5 battalions in 3Bde and told him that if they wanted to tag along with us, they were welcome to. I didn’t go into any song and dance about how I had mad skills that would allow us to navigate across 100mi of desert. I just looked them in the eye and said “The Brigade Assembly Area is 100mile away across the desert. I will get 5-18 there. You are welcome to tag along. Just be at my HMMWV at 1430 so we can discuss the plan. Wheels roll at 1500.” Each of the other four battalions in the brigade had someone there senior to me, but every battalion said that they wanted to come with us.

I made darn sure that every 5-18 vehicle knew the plan. Our vehicles, mostly armor but also a couple dozen wheeled vehicles, were all collected in a tight orderly bunch so it wasn’t too hard to communicate with all the drivers.

At 1430 it was time to discuss the plan with the other battalion leaders. And not a single representative from the sister battalions was at my HMMWV. Fuck. Worried that there’d been a misunderstanding, I went and found each battalion senior guy individually. They each reiterated that they wanted to go with us. Since they all outranked me, I didn’t ask them where the hell they were at 1430. I told them each the plan.

We have approximately 350 vehicles, about 2/3rds of that is armor. Our slowest vehicles are the M109 howitzers and they say 10mph works for them so that's the convoy speed. There will be a pair of HMMWVs in the lead and another in trail. My HMMWV was going to stay in front and navigate. Every other HMMWV will be a sheepdog. Their mission is to help everyone stay together, ID maintenance problems, and alert the lead HMMWVs if we need to stop for any reason.

We're going to delay the start until 1530. We will drive until midnight with only one rest break. We’ll then rack out for the night, and continue on around 0700. We should expect to get to the Bde Assembly Area before noon tomorrow.”

Make sure every vehicle knows the azimuth and distance to Brigade. Make sure that all key vehicles have compasses. Play around with your compass from the passenger seat. You'll find that as long as you hold the compass in the same place each time, the adjustment you have to make for the metal vehicle is predictable.

The order of march is 5-18IN, 2-82FA, the two AR battalions, 54SUP, than anyone else that wants to go with us. 54SUP sheep dogs, you have trail. If there's a problem, radio up the the lead HMMWVs and tell us what's going on. The battalion OICs can then decide whether to halt the entire convoy, or leave the problem unit to follow in our tracks later. If we don't arrive together, we'll ask that a contact team be sent back along our trail to assist whomever they might find.

Once its dark, lights will be “Black Out Drive” only. “Stay as tight as you can without endangering each other. No 100m spacing, tighten it up. Otherwise our column will be 100miles long. DO NOT ALLOW A BREAK IN CONTACT. If a gap forms, call up to the front to slow the convoy down. Charge up to the front to get the idea across if you need to. If all else fails, tell the laggards to follow the trail. If you get completely lost, turn due W and head for a distance highway. That highway goes South to KKMC. Follow it South until you hit the MP checkpoint near KKMC. Ask the MPs for help getting you to the 3rd Brigade Assembly Area. The Bde Assembly Area is about 50 miles away from the highway. It's down a desert road that is marked with barrels.

“Ok, we head out in 20 minutes," I said.

I went back to every 5-18IN vehicle and confirmed that they were ready to go.

20min later I had my HMMWV driver start creeping South at a walking pace. We were in double-column in order to shorten the total length of the convoy. The 5-18 vehicles, in fits and starts, some drivers somehow clearly surprised, followed behind us. It took about 20min to move the first kilometer. I had commo with the other lead HMMWV, but I couldn’t seem to reach any of the Sheepdog HMMWVs nor the two tail end Charlies. That made me nervous. I had given everyone the single channel frequency that we were to be using. We had to be on the same crypto key because that was Corps common. The commo plan was so simple that I'd not thought it necessary to get all the Sheepdog HMMWVs together, prior to leaving, to confirm that they all had their radios operating. In Korea we always ran our radio nets "secure" (encrypted), but maybe Germany based units weren't used to secure commo and therefore had problems.
 

M109 155mm Howitzer. Artillery is the most fearsome weapon on the battlefield, causing more casualties than anything else. (DOD)

Although the 5-18IN vehicles had cleared the HET drop off site, 2-82FA, the M109 artillery types that were the next battalion in the “order of march”, weren’t moving. I told the other lead HMMWV to keep going dead slow and asked my HMMWV driver to hustle us back to 2-82FA to see what was wrong.

The 2-82FA problem seemed to be a matter of moving like pond-water. I could see that there were arty guys poking around their vehicles, fastening this or that, still doing prep tasks and everyone kind of moving at half speed.  I found the senior arty type “Sir, you’ve known for hours that we were leaving. You told me 45min ago that you were ready to go. We started moving 30min ago but you guys haven’t moved an inch.”

"I’m here to take you across 100 miles of trackless desert. No roads, no signs, no terrain features. I’m going tell one of the tank battalions to move out. If you’re not ready to head out when their last tank goes by, you’re on your own.”

I went back to the tank battalion that had been next in line and asked them to move out, bypass 2-82FA, and close up with 5-18. What actually happened, though, is that 2-82FA let both tank battalions and also 54Sup, the Support Battalion, by before moving out as the last battalion. This caused trouble later because the M109 Howitzers were our slowest vehicles and their requested 10mph turned out to be a little too fast. I’d intended to have 2-82FA second in the order of march so I could keep an eye on them, not fifth.   


M1 Abrams tank. If I wasn’t and old Infantryman I’d mention that these things are really quite effective. They can be bouncing around hustling across country and the fire control stabilization is so amazing that they can, while on the move, put rounds into a two kilometer distant car window all day. But I am an old Infantryman so I can’t say any of that. (DOD)

With my compass, some magnetic Kentucky windage, and our odometer, we headed towards the far distant Brigade Assembly Area that had been my home for the last six weeks. The double-columns slowly moved South at 10mph. 350 vehicles. It was thunderous. It seemed like the whole world was shaking. On a couple occasions, while we still had daylight, I had our HMMWV swan out of line so that I could simply spend a couple glorious minutes enjoying the awesome power of leading so many roaring vehicles.

If I had a do-over, I’d have put the convoy into 4 columns. At double columns 350 vehicles was still impossibly long to control. I’d also have put 2-82FA and their slow M109s in front.

The going got harder as night fell. We went to Black Out Drive and continued. Around 7PM we stopped for 20min for headcalls. What I didn’t know, in the darkness, is that we’d already lost 2-82FA. I never did get good commo with tail end Charlie and most of the Sheepdogs, and I didn’t worry about that sufficiently to dream up alternate control measures to maintain situational awareness with rearward elements of the convoy. I blithely assumed that at 10mph any momentary problems in the miles long convoy could get worked out easily enough, and if there was a serious problem a HMMWV would charge to the front and make us aware.

I would learn later that our 20min break allowed 2-82FA's slow M109s to close back up with us. They joined the tail of our convoy and halted just as we climbed back into our vehicles to resume the trek. However, no one had mentioned the earlier break in contact on the radio nor that 2-82FA had just rejoined us. Also, no HMMWV came up and reported. As the rest of the Brigade convoy started slowly moving again, their 20min break complete, just arrived 2-82FA sat in place for a luxurious hour eating and fondling their dicks. Which is the last that we saw of them.

I stopped the convoy at midnight per plan. To get a second opinion on navigation, I pulled out the Loran and, for the first time, turned it on. I’d learned that while my own navigation couldn’t be perfect, it was reliably pretty accurate. LORAN, in contrast, was sometimes perfect and sometimes it would try to send you ten miles off course. Since I could never tell what day to trust LORAN and not, I pretty much only used it when I thought I was near my objective in the darkness.

I had been aiming us for a linear target that I figured I couldn’t miss. It was a desert road near the Brigade that the engineers had marked with barrels. From there, I figured, I could get to the Brigade HQ site pretty easily. My odometer guesstimating, made a little iffy by all our swanning around checking on the convoy, had us about 10 miles from Brigade, so it was looking like we’d made good time. The LORAN agreed that we were almost home. I was very pleased with myself. Which is when I learned that I’d lost an entire battalion. Fuck.

1LT Tracy, the 5-18IN Mortar Plt Leader, had been by far the most useful Sheepdog HMMWV. He had just gone towards the rear to do a recon of our hind regions. He talked to the vehicles in the rear and was told that that 2-82FA had allowed a break in contact (bad), hadn’t sent anyone forward to alert us (stupid), and then there'd been a radio report that they'd lost the trail completely (Oh for chrissakes).

I never got to know LT Tracy, but I do remember perceiving that he had his act together. Mortar platoon is a plumb job for a LT so someone had thought he was really good. The break in contact certainly was not his fault.

I simply could not imagine how the arty types could have lost the trail of the >250 vehicles ahead of them. “How could you not see that track?” I thought.

As other Sheepdog HMMWVs started pulling up, I asked them questions trying to understand the size of the problem and how it occurred. Each HMMWV seem to say a variation of “Oh, we’re C Co”, or “Oh, but we’re D Co”. Everyone had just looked out for themselves. No one had looked out for the larger group. Shit.  

I told the leaders that we were about 10miles out and asked them if they wanted to rack out and continue after dawn per plan, or just drive on now. They said now. About an hour later we pulled into the Brigade area.

2-82FA showed up the next afternoon. Sigh. Well, at least they weren’t lost forever.

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