Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

It would soon be time for Fred Franks to put all that knowledge into action — but in a way he never expected.

In the fall of 1989, the Warsaw Pact was collapsing, the Iron Curtain opened, and the Cold War seemed to be coming to an end. For over four decades, the U.S. Army in Europe, as part of NATO, had "fought" that war, not in actual battles, but in planning, training, and exercises. The mission in that war had been to deter and defend — to make the enemy unwilling to risk attack and, if they did attack, to throw them out. Now the mission had been successful.

But now what? What was the Army's mission in Europe — in the whole world, for that matter — now that it appeared to be no longer East versus West? The Army's leaders quickly began to move to answer such questions.

In August 1989, just as the Iron Curtain was beginning its final collapse, Lieutenant General Fred Franks took command of VII Corps — the "Jayhawks." With headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, the Cold War VII Corps was 110,000 U.S., German, and Canadian soldiers (74,000 of them were U.S.). Its major units were the 1st Armored Division, 3rd Infantry Division, 12th German Panzer (i.e., Armor) Division, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, 11th Aviation Brigade, VII Corps Artillery (three brigades), a Canadian brigade, the 4th CMBG (the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, the Army Group reserve), logistics (Corps Support Command), and corps separate brigades of military police (14th MP Brigade), military intelligence (207th MI Brigade), signal (93rd Signal Brigade), engineers (7th Engineer Brigade), finance (7th Finance Group), and personnel (7th Personnel Group).

By the turn of the new year, it was evident that the end of the Soviet empire was likely to be permanent. That meant that Franks faced hard questions, not the least of them being how he was to deal with the drawdown of VII Corps units.

Now that the mission to defend against a Soviet-led invasion seemed over, the United States was sure to cut back in Europe. Two U.S. corps were then stationed in Germany, the V and the VII. In a matter of months, the two corps would be pared down to one, with units inactivating in each corps. Fred Franks would have the unhappy responsibility of presiding over the termination of many of his proud units.

That was several months down the road, however. In the near term, he had more pressing tasks. He had seen the flood of East Germans coming west in November. By early March 1990, he had pulled the 2nd ACR off their over-forty-year border mission. Formal mission changes would eventually be issued, but for Franks and VII Corps, change was needed now in training. He thought of new missions.

One thing was certain: they would be nothing like the terrain-oriented mission the corps had been used to. In a terrain-oriented mission, the lanes and routes the attackers can take are well known. You set up obstacles to slow him down while your own reserves are flown in. If you have to fall back, it is to already prepared positions. Your logistical support and command-and-control structure are clear and well worked out. Your command posts can remain in previously prepared positions where communications are dependable. After four decades of confrontation in Europe, defense against every conceivable attack had been minutely choreographed.

That would no longer be the case. In a rapidly changing world, the new mission for a powerful armored corps like VII would more likely involve finding and killing a similarly powerful opposing force at some distance from the corps's launch point. In other words, it would be a force-oriented mission, involving a long—100 kilometers or more — movement to contact, followed by a meeting engagement.

Thus the corps commander and the corps staff needed to know how to move the corps over those long distances. In contact, they needed to achieve coherence of formation — to keep units physically positioned relative to one another so that they could mutually support one another in a fight — and to rapidly focus their combat power — to arrange their tanks, infantry, artillery, and aviation in the right combination for maximum effect against the enemy. Formation alignments would have to be shifted rapidly… and units would have to be trained to know how to do that. Reactions and responses would have to be trained to a much greater quickness than in terrain-oriented operations. There would have to be far greater adaptability of mind and agility of units. Meanwhile, logistics would become stretched out. A lot of material would somehow have to find its way to the right units, all of them on the move: food, fuel, and ammo. And the entire corps — all of its many component units — would have to be orchestrated the way Franks and Brookshire had orchestrated the 2nd Squadron of the Blackhorse in Vietnam.

Training, training, and more training! More important, a different mind-set from the now-vanishing Cold War scenarios would have to be created. Agility and adaptability don't come easily.

In the fall of 1989, at the start of his command of VII Corps, Franks was already talking about fighting the corps as a corps, and not as a collection of individual units battling to defend a piece of NATO territory. Early in 1990, he published a "commander's intent" directive with a vision for an "agile" corps. He followed that in May with details. The corps, he said, must be prepared to "master rapid transition in tactical maneuvers, attack to defense, defense to attack, attack from the march… " The tasks included "moving rapidly over great distances, fighting from the march, retaining the initiative in meeting engagements, conducting hasty attacks/defenses, sustaining combat power continuously… "

Major exercises in 1990 put these ideas into practice. In January, General Butch Saint ordered that the annual REFORGER exercise engaging VII Corps against V Corps begin with tactical movement that brought them to contact and then a meeting engagement. Saint also had been talking about a "capable" corps, meaning one that clearly must be able to do more than its NATO mission. Later that winter, in a BCTP exercise with Major General Tom Rhame's 1st Infantry Division — the Big Red One — at Fort Riley, Kansas, Franks and VII Corps took the ideas even further.

Because of the old Cold War lineup of forces, VII Corps was the 1st Infantry's immediate headquarters (in the event of war in Europe, the division would have moved to positions in Germany under VII Corps as a REFORGER unit). Even so, VII Corps would not have normally supervised the BCTP, or any of the division's tactical training in the United States. However, Franks recognized that the BCTP exercise was another opportunity to train for the likely new corps mission, so with the okay of III Corps (their normal U.S. HQ) he brought a corps headquarters team to Fort Riley, plugged them into the Big Red One's command structure, and changed the training scenario from the old Cold War defensive mission to something completely different, again involving long unit movements climaxed by meeting engagements.

Adapting to these last-minute changes was no simple matter for Rhame and his commanders and staff, and it was a big risk, too. All those involved could fall flat on their faces in a big way. Specifically, they weren't used to working within the context of a corps offensive operation — that is, as one unit operating in concert with several others, all under the direction of the corps commander. At the same time, they were used to the Cold War scenarios, all set in Germany. This new scenario was not in their planning and training scheme, or their mission requirements, and it required some fast footwork on their part.

In fact, Generals Rhame and Franks did not even know each other. They were all starting completely cold.

As it turned out, it was a terrific exercise for everyone, and it told Franks a great deal about Tom Rhame and his commanders and staff — primarily that they could take rapid mission changes in stride and go on to execute the mission. Later on, this knowledge influenced Franks's mission assignment to Rhame's division not once but twice.

In May, then again later in the summer, Franks used a similar scenario for Major General Dutch Shoffner and the 3rd Infantry Division (their 3rd Brigade would deploy with 1st AD) BCTP exercises — that is, long movement to contact, followed by a meeting engagement, followed by an attack or defense, depending on the success of the meeting engagement. Major General Ron Griffith, on his own initiative, brought his entire 1st AD command element to the field during this exercise. He mirrored what 3rd Infantry was doing and in that manner was able to get an exercise for his division.

In June, VII Corps's 11th Aviation Brigade deployed Apaches to Israel for a live-fire training exercise in the Negev Desert. For Franks and his aviators, it was valuable training that they could not do in Europe, plus they were able to gain lessons on deployment of aircraft and units.

In September, Franks and his commanders and staff did a VII Corps seminar for one week as part of the preparation for their own BCTP WARFIGHTER exercise to take place in early March '91. That week was an intense series of discussions, tactical problem solving, and commander-to-commander interaction. In that seminar, Franks also used a scenario that required the corps to move a long distance and attack from the march. Elements of the corps also trained with a still-experimental JSTARS system (Joint Surveillance Target-Acquisition System), the first time that revolutionary technology had been used by an operational unit. JSTARS aircraft are modified Boeing 707s with the capability, through recently developed radar technology, of seeing unit moves on the ground over a wide radius, and showing these moves in real time over downlink facilities. JSTARS gives commanders the capability of knowing all the enemy's moves over the deep battlefield, a great advantage to have in the kind of force-oriented missions Fred Franks foresaw for U.S. Army corps in the future. Later, in Saudi Arabia, Franks recalled those capabilities and successfully lobbied for the use of JSTARS in theater. Though the system was still experimental, JSTARS was too useful to do without.

A leader has to know how his commanders will respond to situations they're likely to encounter in battle. Training exercises provide the most realistic opportunity to observe commanders in action. These exercises — REFORGER, the BCTPs with the 1st Infantry Division, and the 3rd Infantry Division, VII Corps, BCTP seminar — also provided Fred Franks with the opportunity to see how he himself and his corps staff handled the new situations VII Corps would surely face if it was ever to fight another war.

It wasn't luck that VII Corps was ready, and trained, to fight Saddam Hussein's best in February of the following year.

On 2 August 1990, the Iraqi army invaded and occupied Kuwait. Soon afterward, President Bush sent U.S. air, sea, and ground units to the Persian Gulf region to deter Iraqi aggression. An extension of Iraqi conquests a few kilometers down Saudi Arabia's east coast would put Saddam Hussein in charge of close to half of the world's known oil supplies. By mid-August the Army's 82nd Airborne Division and the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade were taking up positions in northeast Saudi Arabia, showing American resolve — if not a great deal of combat power. During the following weeks, more powerful ground units from the United States and other members of the Coalition that President Bush had created to stop the Iraqi threat arrived in Saudi Arabia. If Saddam Hussein was ever of a mind to continue his conquests toward the south, he now had second thoughts.

Meanwhile, in Stuttgart, General Franks was looking at ways his VII Corps might become useful to the Army in the present crisis. Whether or not VII Corps would eventually be deployed to southwest Asia was a national policy decision, but VII Corps was available, it was relatively close (Germany is about the same distance from Saudi Arabia as New York from California), for the time being it was not really needed for the defense of Europe, and it was a heavy, armored corps, much of which had recently trained for offensive, force-oriented missions — the kind of missions that would surely be necessary if the decision were made to forcibly uproot the Iraqis from Kuwait. So it was certainly possible that all or part of the corps would go to Saudi. More to the point, Franks knew that fellow soldiers were in a tough spot, the United States was deeply committed, and it was up to him to anticipate and look to the future where VII Corps was concerned. For Franks, the strategic situation resembled the days in 1945 when the European war ended, permitting forces to be shifted from that theater to the Pacific. The commanders had to find out first what was going on in that other theater of operations.

In consequence, he had the corps staff read themselves into the crisis — just in case. Corps G-2, Colonel Gene Klaus, and Corps G-3, Colonel Stan Cherrie, under the direction of the chief of staff, Brigadier General John Landry, set up a situation room at Kelly Barracks (an old Wehrmacht complex near Stuttgart that was the headquarters for VII Corps) in a vaulted-door, secure conference room facility in a basement. They set up maps, monitored the intelligence communications traffic they had obtained through their own parent headquarters in Heidelberg, posted the disposition of Iraqi forces, and of U.S. and other Coalition forces; they read up on the Iraqi army, and in general did their homework about the operation that by then was called Desert Shield. They were marching to the sound of the guns.

At the same time, Franks had planners looking into moving the corps from Germany to the Persian Gulf. Since he knew this would be a truly enormous undertaking, if they were called to do it, he wanted to know in advance what would be involved. As it happened, the most obvious route for the corps — to go through Italian ports — was not the best one. Heavy combat equipment could not pass through the tunnels in the Alps. Thus the fastest route, counterintuitively, looked to be through the northern ports of Germany.

He also had his planners look at an indirect approach to forcing the Iraqis out of Kuwait. "What if we moved VII Corps to eastern Turkey," he asked, "and then attacked toward Baghdad? Is that a workable alternative? Could we move our corps through the terrain and could we logistically support the operation?" After some corps planning work, it began to look like a workable option. As far as they could see, no Iraqi force was available to stop them. If Saddam saw an armored corps on the move to Baghdad, he might quickly decide his capital was worth more than Kuwait.

Franks informally discussed the Turkey option to his own higher commanders, General Crosbie ("Butch") Saint, the U.S. Army Europe commander, and General Jim McCarthy, USAF, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe, both bold thinkers, and they both liked the idea. But when they tried the concept out on still higher echelons, Franks's idea was squelched.

The American buildup in the Gulf was directed by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander in chief (CINC) of CENTCOM (Central Command), headquartered in Tampa, Florida. CENTCOM is one of six United States multiservice — joint — commands, its area of military responsibility covering most of southwest Asia and the Middle East, with the exception of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, which are under EUCOM (European Command). Before the crisis in the Gulf, CENTCOM existed only as a planning body, which is to say that there were no actual troops under CENTCOM control. In case of need, troops from all the services would be given to CENTCOM (in Army terminology, they would be "chopped" to CENTCOM) from other geographical commands. CENTCOM would be the "supported" command, and other joint commands, such as EUCOM and FORSCOM, would be "supporting." CENTCOM trained with the various contingency units, who would normally be "chopped" to their command if need arose.

In August 1990, XVIII Airborne Corps from FORSCOM was chopped to CENTCOM and immediately began deploying to Saudi Arabia, along with air and naval forces. The XVIII Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Gary Luck, was what the Army calls a contingency corps. It was specifically configured to deploy worldwide to meet a variety of circumstances, and to do so rapidly. It was made up of the 82nd Airborne Division, commanded by Major General James Johnson; the 101st Airborne Division, commanded by Major General J. H. Binford Peay; the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), commanded by Major General Barry McCaffrey (a heavy division); the 1st Cavalry Division, commanded by Brigadier General John Tilelli; and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, commanded by Colonel Doug Starr. Units of XVIII Corps began closing in theater in early August. The last to arrive, the 1st Cavalry Division, closed on 22 October.

Fred Franks was sure that if VII Corps or VII Corps units were to join XVIII Corps in the Gulf, they would know what to do. He was not certain who would be called, but knew his job was to have them ready if they were needed. If a whole corps was needed, they were the right team, he knew, to give the growing U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia real offensive punch on the ground. That decision would come in time, but there were false starts, false alarms, and zigzags along the way.

In August, after aviation elements from neighboring V Corps were alerted and then deployed, Franks asked and received General Saint's OK to alert his own aviation brigade for possible deployment of an attack aviation battalion. Though they worked hard to put the move together, the battalion did not deploy. Even so, Colonel Johnnie Hitt, the 11th Aviation Brigade commander, and his troops taught the rest of the corps a great deal about preparing for the move. As it turned out, this was an important planning drill for Franks and the corps staff. At about the same time, the first VII Corps troops to actually go to the Gulf were alerted and deployed — two NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) reconnaissance platoons, equipped with German-built FUCHS (FOX) vehicles.

Later in September, Franks had a meeting on force drawdown with General Saint at U.S. Army Europe Headquarters in Heidelberg, about forty-five minutes from Stuttgart by helicopter. It was clear by then that VII Corps HQ was soon going to be deactivated. "Look, sir," Franks suggested, "if another corps is needed, why don't you just send us to the Gulf? We're already halfway there. We're going to be out of a mission in Central Europe. The decision is, V Corps will be the residual European corps with headquarters in Frankfurt. Why don't you just send VII Corps? We know what to do. We've had our BCTPs. You know about the training we've been doing. Send us."

Saint was open to that idea and passed it on to higher command. But nothing immediately came of it, at least to Franks's knowledge.

By October, it was becoming increasingly obvious to the military leadership in Washington that the XVIII Corps was not going to provide them with an adequate offensive option against the Iraqis, if the President chose to exercise such an option. And so, in due course, Franks was alerted to send to the Gulf the 1st Armored Division, commanded by Major General Ron Griffith. But soon this deployment was put on hold.

Later in October, he received official instructions to begin planning to send the whole corps. But a few days after that, the message from higher up took another zigzag: "Stand down on your planning," he was told. "But don't throw anything away."

"WILCO," Franks and his team, good soldiers, replied, but the order was a painful jolt for all of them. They wanted to go; they expected to go; and they had all been working hard to prepare to go. And then… well, what did this new order mean?

And just a few days after that, on 2 November, there was still another zigzag: "No, revive that, but keep it very, very close hold" — meaning, under tight security, with very few people in the know.

A very small planning cell was reconstituted, including Franks's deputy, Brigadier General Gene Daniel; chief of staff, Brigadier General John Landry; Support Command commander (VII Corps logistics), Brigadier General Bob McFarlin; corps G-3, Colonel Stan Cherrie; G-3 plans chief, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Goedkoop; deputy G-4, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Stafford; G-4 planner, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Browne; and G-1 planner, Major Paul Liebeck. It was a smart, talented team.

The days after 2 November saw Franks shuttling back and forth to Heidelberg and General Saint. Under the cover of discussions on the planned drawdown of VII Corps, he and Saint worked on the troop list and all the other myriad choices needed for the deployment of VII Corps to the Gulf. It did not take them long to realize that the Cold War, NATO-oriented VII Corps would not work in that theater. The new mission demanded a new team. VII Corps would have to be reconstituted from a terrain-oriented, defensive corps to a maneuver, contingency corps, with fully modernized maneuver battalions, equipped with the latest M1A1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley armored fighting vehicles — not an easy transformation.

To make matters even more difficult, the corps would be moving to a location that was, for all practical purposes, empty… nowhere. VII Corps was now configured to fight in Central Europe, where they operated within a sophisticated infrastructure of communications, roads, railroads, supplies, and fuel. In Central Europe, the corps also normally availed itself of what is called host-nation support: that is, territorial units of the German army and some German civilian agencies were set up to supplement the corps's need for logistics, troops, equipment, and supplies. Saudi Arabia, at best, offered a much more austere operating environment. In Saudi, there was little to no infrastructure. When you're out in the middle of the desert, you have nothing … nothing. So you've got to bring your infrastructure with you.

They would have to deploy. It was never intended for a corps to plan and execute its own strategic deployment. Both USAREUR and EUCOM HQ sent planning cells to Kelly Barracks, and Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili, Saint's deputy, was to be a big help.

General Saint, who was himself the leading proponent of mobile armored warfare in the Army, wanted VII Corps to be successful and to give them what they needed, yet at the same time, he and his boss, General Jack Galvin, EUCOM commander, faced serious tensions between the needs of VII Corps in the Gulf and the needs of their own residual mission in Europe. VII Corps was already forward-deployed into a theater with an immediate and very serious mission; now it was to be deployed to still another theater. In such cases, conflicts between the two theaters' needs are inevitable. General Saint had to balance the residual Army mission capability of the forces remaining after VII Corps had deployed with the need to provide the corps with the necessary forces to accomplish their mission in CENTCOM in Saudi Arabia. It was not an easy choice for him, and it was not always easy for General Franks to accept what General Saint wanted him to take. At times the discussions between the two generals about the right mix of forces and amount of support grew heated.

Heated discussions between generals are not uncommon. To Fred Franks, this kind of candor is expected behavior. It goes with the job of general. Commanders who do not pound the table to make their case for accomplishing their mission are not doing their job. They should — and must — talk tough to each other. Generals do not tend to be delicate souls. Strong egos are part of their job description. They will stand up for what they believe in, normally in private meetings. A general who does not is almost surely a liability to his command.

Heated discussions require a particular kind of atmosphere in order to be productive, however. They demand openness on both sides. There has to be a true exchange, with each side asking questions and arguing his case, and then when all the arguments are exhausted, the senior commander has to make his decision. After that, it's "Yes, sir, WILCO," and you get to work and execute.

It's the senior commander's responsibility to create the work atmosphere that suits him, and that will be the most productive. It's called the command climate, and it's a function of a commander's command style. Coming out of cavalry, Fred Franks and Butch Saint were used to a command climate of fast-moving, open, often-animated discussions. Other commanders, either consciously or as a result of personality or the service culture they come out of, will favor something different. General Norman Schwarzkopf, for instance, was a passionate, charismatic leader with a famously thermonuclear temper and an equally famous propensity to verbally gut any subordinate who — in his perception — crossed him. All commanders like the visible and enthusiastic support of subordinates. Schwarzkopf went further. He didn't welcome contradiction, much less the kind of openness and candor that is often the way with other commanders. This difference would become important later.

This is the makeup of VII Corps that Generals Franks and Saint hammered out:

From their European VII Corps divisions, they would take only the 1st Armored. From Europe, they would additionally take the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, the Support Command, plus other corps regimental and brigade units, totaling about 42,000 of the original 110,000 soldiers — in the end, only 40 percent of the original European corps. The rest of VII Corps would come from other units in Europe and the continental United States. These would include units from the Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve, who would join the Support Command and the existing corps brigade units. VII Corps also would eventually include the British 1st Armored Division, but they had no idea of that in November. Some major specifics: The 3rd Armored Division, from V Corps, commanded by Major General Paul "Butch" Funk, would go in place of the 3rd Infantry Division (though a brigade from the 3rd Infantry Division did go). And the 1st Infantry Division would deploy with two brigades from Fort Riley, and add the 2nd Armored Division forward brigade from northern Germany, which would join them in Saudi Arabia. Three complete artillery brigades (one from V Corps in Germany, one from the Arkansas National Guard, and one from III Corps in the United States) were added to the 210th Brigade, one of three in NATO VII Corps, to form its corps artillery. The VII Corps support command in Germany — in that built-up modern infrastructure — numbered 7,500 U.S. soldiers. In Desert Storm — in the austere desert environment — they grew to over 26,000 soldiers, including a medical brigade of fifteen hospitals.

Each of the eight non-division brigades in the corps also grew. For example, two brigades of three battalions each were added to the 7th Engineer Brigade. And to increase air defense capabilities, a composite air defense task force of Patriot and HAWK units was added. Many of these additions, made by Franks's 1959 West Point classmate and FORSCOM commander, General Ed Burba, came from the Reserve component (National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve) in the States. From the Reserve component, 21,000 soldiers and their equipment were added (19,000 in units and another 2,000 as individual replacements). In a little over ninety days, VII Corps grew by a total of 124,000 soldiers. And when the corps attacked the Republican Guards, it was a new corps team of 146,000 U.S. and British soldiers and close to 50,000 vehicles.

Once this essentially new corps team was in the desert, just to live and train, everything had to be created from what they brought with them — shelter, sanitation, waste disposal, mail system, water, and training ranges for weapons firing and maneuver practice. Beyond that, capabilities to attack over long distances had to be provided, such as additional trucks for fuel and ammunition, additional communication (capable of reaching longer distances), and additional support of all types, such as medical personnel and engineers (to build roads, airfields, and breach minefields).

Units and equipment had to be added to make up the difference. VII Corps had to become a corps much like XVIII Corps, capable of being deployed, then of fighting and supporting itself. That meant adding many units for a contingency role for which they had not prepared. Although XVIII Corps also had to add units for their mission, for them it proved less of an adjustment, for they were already trained and configured for that. VII Corps had been deployed, permanently stationed, and configured to fight in Central Europe. There had been no thought to making it a "contingency corps," capable of being picked up from Germany and deployed worldwide. In going through this experience, VII Corps was to be a microcosm of what the entire U.S. Army would be required to do over the next few years — that is, rapid tailoring to accomplish missions that were difficult to predict far in advance. Such rapid tailoring is now part of the U.S. Army's revised (1993) doctrine, and is now done with relative ease (as we have seen recently in Army deployments to Haiti and Bosnia).

So for VII Corps it was not a matter of picking up the existing Cold War VII Corps in Germany, moving it to Saudi Arabia, fighting the Iraqis, then boarding ships and planes and coming home. In a little less than 100 days, a new corps was built from a no-notice start; it was moved via ship and air to southwest Asia; units got used to operating together; and then they fought a major land campaign.

The VII Corps name was the same, but in the deserts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, it was quite a different corps.

When VII Corps did deploy — and even at this late date it was not certain that they would — VII Corps would no longer be part of the NATO coalition in Germany, but of a new coalition, led by a new command team, General Schwarzkopf, CENTCOM, and Lieutenant General John Yeosock, Third Army, in a part of the world where they had absolutely no experience. They had a lot of work ahead of them, and not a lot of time to accomplish it.

On Thursday, 8 November, Franks was again in Heidelberg with General Saint. At that meeting, the final troop list was approved, and many other details were worked out.

Sometime during the meeting, Franks asked, "Sir, when do you think we might get the word to go?"

"Should be sometime later today, I think," Saint answered.

All right! Franks thought. Finally!

Later, back in Stuttgart, there was a phone call from Heidelberg. Major General John Heldstab, deputy chief of staff for operations, was on the line. "Fred, it's a go," Heldstab told him. "Watch CNN at 2000 tonight over Armed Forces Network."

"What about official notification, John?"

"As soon as we get something official, I'll get a message to your headquarters."

"Thanks, John. I've got some work to do."

They were going!

Just before 2000, Franks and all but three of his planning team assembled at the ops center. John Landry was on leave, and Bob Browne and Paul Liebeck were not available.

At 2000, President Bush came on the screen to announce that he was sending more troops to Saudi Arabia. He was followed by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, who announced the units that would go: VII Corps from Germany and 1st Infantry Division from Fort Riley, Kansas.

As the President and the Secretary and the Chairman spoke, one thought flashed through every mind at the ops center: That means us!

The mood then was quiet, confident. There were a few "Hooahs" (an old Army rallying cry) and "Jayhawks" and "All riiights," a few fist pumps and excited grins. But this was a group of professionals. All of them had been working hard to prepare for this moment, and all of them knew they would soon be working even harder. The unspoken message in the air was "Okay, let's get the job done right."

It didn't take long for other thoughts to crowd into Fred Franks's consciousness, thoughts of the immediate challenges they all faced and of all they had to set in motion: teamwork, attitudes, training priorities, security.

Security is always a complex issue for commanders, and a particularly difficult one to get right. On the one hand, you have to be able to let staff and subordinate leaders know what they need to know to accomplish the mission. On the other hand, you want to keep your actions screened from the enemy. All other things being equal, the more public a commander can be, the easier the move becomes.

The issue is not one the commander can himself decide. Ultimately, that is determined by civilian policy makers. Up to this particular evening, Franks and his staff had kept an extremely close hold on information relating to the move, but when the announcement over CNN specifically named the major units that would be going, Franks concluded that he and the rest of the corps leaders could now be much more public about who was going (though they could not be public about their strengths, their equipment, or their schedule of deployment). Having that option made the job much easier to coordinate within the corps itself, it helped inform families about what they needed to know most, and it allowed them to make the plans they needed to make. It additionally allowed the corps to coordinate more easily with the Germans and other NATO allies on the specifics of the movement.

Soon, Franks knew, he would have to go around to check the pulse of the soldiers and NCOs. How were they handling this? What about the families?

The family question was especially important for a corps based in Germany. Many American military families were living there — most married soldiers had their spouses and children with them — and in Germany, there was no external family and neighbor support on which the spouses and children could depend. That meant the families would either have to go home to the United States, which few wanted to do, or else depend on each other and on the entire military family in Germany.

Fred Franks knew he would have to begin working on family issues along with everything else.

"Let's go," he said to all the others, "we have work to do."

The TV set was in another part of the ops center, so Franks and his planners reassembled in the conference room. When they were there, he wanted to say a few words, to give the others a chance to collect their thoughts and capture the significance of the moment.

"Let all this settle in for a few minutes," he said. "This is part of history. You will remember this night for the rest of your lives, and well you should. It is something to tell your kids and grandkids about. There is a personal part for each of us as well. It affects our families. For some it is a first. Others will remember Vietnam. I know we have a lot to do, but I wanted to pause and reflect for a moment, because you will want to remember this night for a long time."

And then they got down to business.

Two hours later, they had a pretty good idea of the direction their next days would take. Their major challenge was to figure out the best use of their time. Their major unknown was to answer the most important question: What would VII Corps's mission be? Franks had a pretty good idea that they would not be going down there to defend, but an attack can take many forms, and the corps had to be prepared to undertake any of them. Next, they needed to set an order of deployment quickly so that units could plan accordingly. It seemed best to lead the deployment with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment as the security force, which was one of the traditional roles of a cavalry regiment. But after that, the most immediate requirement was to get in as many engineer, transportation, and communication units as possible, so that they could build some basic infrastructure in the desert. Deploying combat units later would allow them to take advantage of the modern training facilities in Germany before they left. Franks had two other immediate tasks. First, he wanted to assemble the major unit commanders the next morning and issue guidance and listen to what they had to say. The second was to fly down to Saudi Arabia as soon as possible to make a leader's reconnaissance. The leader's recon took place from Sunday, 11 November, to Thursday the fifteenth.

At home, Denise had seen AFN, as had Margie in Bad Kissingen. This moment was hard for her — it was hard for both of them, as it was for all the families. She had seen him go away to war before, and she knew what that meant, and she knew what the separation meant for families.

"So now you know what those meetings and trips to Heidelberg have been about," he said after they'd had a chance to sit down and catch their breath in their family room.

"Now I know," she said. "Fred, I thought you were working to deactivate units in the corps."

"Look, Denise," he answered, "if it has to be done, VII Corps is trained and ready. We know how to do this. I know how to get it done at least cost to our troops.

"You and I have been through this before. We both know what to do. Now we have to help others. Who better to do this than you and me?" As he spoke, Franks thought again of Vietnam, the amputee ward, and the opportunities the Army had given him to come back.

As Fred spoke these words, he could see in her face two conflicting emotions. One, she wished she didn't have to hear them. And two, she was herself a veteran. In the crunch, she was a real rock. "OK," her face was telling him, "you and VII Corps have to go and do what you have to do. It's your job. Just as I'll have my own job here. We'll both do our best." She was an Army wife, and Army wives have their own kind of resolve, discipline, and duty.

The next day, she was rolling up her sleeves, getting involved with family support for the entire corps, and setting a positive example.

FRIDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 1990

Early Friday morning, Franks got two calls from Saudi Arabia. The first was from Major General William "Gus" Pagonis in Dhahran, and the second from Lieutenant General John Yeosock in Riyadh. Yeosock was commander of ARCENT/Third Army, which had now been given the mission to command XVIII Corps and VII Corps under CENTCOM. Before VII Corps had been sent, ARCENT handled logistics and infrastructure for CENTCOM, and XVIII Corps reported to CENTCOM for operations. (This rapid transformation from an infrastructure command to also being a two-corps field command was to prove understandably difficult and take some time.) Gus Pagonis handled logistics for ARCENT, but also directly for the CINC — a job he accomplished so brilliantly that he was promoted to lieutenant general during the course of the Gulf crisis. Pagonis had a talent for making things happen, and for getting what needed to be got, no matter what it took to get it. Both Yeosock and Pagonis, it turned out, were primarily concerned with the immediate difficulties of bringing the enormous VII Corps into the already logistically strapped Gulf theater. The first problem was what to do with them and how to supply them. The mission against the Iraqis — whatever that turned out to be — would be dealt with later.

When Pagonis called, Franks had no idea who he was; they had never met. In fact, the name did not register; what Franks wrote down on his pad was "Bagonas." After all that was cleared up, Pagonis welcomed Franks and the corps to CENTCOM, and then got down to business.

"Right, Gus, thanks," Franks said in response to the welcoming words, and then asked, "And so what advice do you have?"

"That's what I called about," Pagonis said. "The theater is strapped for transportation, and for tents and cots for your troops. We were just getting up to speed in supporting XVIII Corps, and now we have your corps coming."

"How can we help?"

"First, you can front-load your deployment with as much support infrastructure as possible. I know you'll want to get your combat units in first. Don't do it."

As it happened, Franks was planning to send logistics in first, with most combat units to follow. That way the combat units could train as much as possible on the sophisticated training facilities in Germany. Pagonis's advice confirmed that plan.

"What about ports?"

"We'll bring you in through Dammam and Jubayl." Dammam and Jubayl were major ports on the Gulf, in northeastern Saudi Arabia. They had recently been upgraded and modernized with U.S. help and advice. As a result, Dammam and Jubayl became world-class seaports. Without them the enormous Coalition deployment would still have been possible, but not in a workable time frame. "I can't emphasize enough," Pagonis went on, "that you need to bring as many HETs as you can from Germany. Otherwise we will have your troops stacked up in ports waiting for trucks. You also need to bring as much tentage and as many cots as you can find. We do not have any for you here. XVIII Corps bought all the Saudis had." HETs — Heavy Equipment Transporters — were used in Saudi Arabia mainly for transporting heavy tracked vehicles the 400 to 500 kilometers from the ports to the Tactical Assembly Areas — TAAs.

"Right, Gus," Franks replied in closing. "I've got it. Appreciate the advice. Look forward to joining the team and working with you."

It was a good phone call, Franks thought then, direct, candid, and to the point. In a few minutes he got the picture of what they were up against in this deployment. There were going to be shortages. It was going to be a lean theater, not at all like Germany, with its relatively luxurious logistical base. No use fighting it, he thought. That's the way it is. Deal with it.

Meanwhile, Gus Pagonis had been direct and forthright, true, but he'd had his own agenda as well. Pagonis was just getting his head above water with XVIII Corps. He was just about able to meet their requirements. And now VII Corps was coming down from Europe and the States, and he had very little left for them. He couldn't very well go to Gary Luck and ask him to give it back. Meanwhile, VII Corps was leaving a giant warehouse (in Pagonis's view) that was full of material that he could use in theater. And so, as soon as it was announced that VII Corps was going to the Gulf, the first thing he did was put leverage on Franks to bring some of that material down: cots, tents, fuel trucks, tank transporters, and much, much else. It was a normal request.

Pagonis took his needs to Franks. Other CENTCOM and ARCENT requests were going to Washington to the Department of the Army and the Joint Staff. EUCOM, with USAREUR as the land component, was one source of supply. Yet Saint proved in no way eager to raid all the warehouses of Europe and pull all of his stocks down to where he didn't have enough for his own mission. His mission remained large and CENTCOM had other sources of supply. At that point, CENTCOM was to be the supported command; it was the main U.S. operation in all the world, and General Powell had directed that they could have anything they asked for. What Butch Saint wanted was for Pagonis — and CENTCOM in general — to go to the Department of the Army and the Joint Staff and get them to support the theater. He wanted balance. He wanted Washington to look worldwide and task the Army all over the world to contribute to the Gulf forces, in ways that preserved mission accomplishment. He didn't want USAREUR to be forced to become CENTCOM's automatic supply source, simply because USAREUR was closer to the Gulf than everyone else. He wanted to supply VII Corps, but not the whole theater.

As it turned out, VII Corps got all the support they needed from Europe. Saint did want VII Corps to succeed, and in truth CENTCOM was unable to supply the corps with what it needed, so in the end Saint and Galvin opened up the caches of Central Europe not only to them, but to the theater. They got not only basic equipment (including, for instance, water trailers from what was once East Germany, now with German markings) but also consumables such as spare parts, ammo, medical supplies, and so on. VII Corps's deployment from Europe took almost double the number of ships than what was originally estimated.

The conversation with John Yeosock was more wide ranging than the earlier one with Gus Pagonis. Franks and Yeosock were friends and fellow cavalrymen.

"Fred, welcome to the team," Yeosock said as soon as they were connected on a secure line.

"John, thanks for calling. Proud to join the team. Bringing a lot of combat power with me. Think I can get an airplane and come down on a leaders' recon on Sunday."

"That's perfect. We'll set up some briefings and get you around the area. Plan to stay through Wednesday, as the CINC wants a meeting in Dammam down through division commanders."

"Right, I'll do that," Franks said, then went on to summarize his conversation with General Pagonis.

"What Gus told you is accurate," Yeosock replied after he'd finished. "We were just about out of the hole with XVIII Corps, and now we are back to square one." And he went on to reinforce Pagonis's emphasis on logistics, especially trucks, tents, and cots, adding that they would also need units in early who could build an infrastructure — rough base camps, sanitation, communication, and the like. The desert was like nothing they were used to, he told him. You had to look hard in the States for anything that harsh and empty. Both men had served in the southwestern desert, at the 3rd CAV at Fort Bliss. But that was a tropical rain forest compared to the Saudi desert, Yeosock said.

He was exaggerating, but not much. One of the VII Corps troops remarked later that looking around the Saudi desert truly proved God rested on the seventh day.

"Going in first with logistics makes sense," Franks agreed, "and that is what we'll do. But I know the deployment order is your call" — as commander of Third Army, VII Corps's new next higher command. "What I have in mind is to send the 2nd ACR first for security. Then I'll send infrastructure. I'll have a recommended complete TPFDL for your approval when we come on our leaders' recon."

The TPFDL — Time Phased Force Deployment List — lays out the order of deployment for each unit to go into a new theater. The commander in theater must approve this schedule before it can be set in motion. That happened early in Franks's visit to Saudi Arabia a few days later.

"Go with that plan," Yeosock said, "and we can look over your detailed list when you get down here."

They moved on to other matters.

"What about assembly areas?" Franks asked. "And any word on employment?" — mission.

"Right now, I see you to the west of XVIII Corps, with your 2nd ACR maintaining contact on the east with XVIII's 3rd ACR and on the west with the Arab Corps" — with the Arab part of the Coalition armed forces. "Then you can place your divisions behind the 2nd ACR."

Franks and some of his commanders would look over some of these Tactical Assembly Areas the following week during the leaders' recon.

"For employment, it is hard to read right now," Yeosock continued. "I suspect we'll get something from the CINC next week. It looks to me like you'll be the main attack and that you'll attack up the Wadi al Batin. You'll head north from Hafar al Batin with the corps deployed from that town east to Al Qaysumah."

Hafar al Batin is a Saudi town that lies near the junction of the Wadi and the major highway known as the Tapline Road, which runs north and west from the coast in a virtually straight line parallel to the Saudi-Iraq border. The town of Al Qaysumah lies on the Tapline Road about thirty kilometers from Hafar al Batin, and the entire area is approximately four hundred kilometers northwest of the ports on the Gulf coast. At the time, Fred Franks had only the vaguest notion of this geography, and the names he spelled out phonetically — and incorrectly. His ignorance was not destined to last for long.

"Thanks, John," he said, signing off. "That gives me enough to get the corps moving. See you Sunday night."

Small moments and not large occasions often wake us to the significance of enormous, earth-rattling changes. At nine A.M. that same morning a group of senior German military leaders and local civilian officials gathered with VII Corps leaders and families next to the VII Corps front gate there at Kelly Barracks. They were there to dedicate a memorial to the end of the Cold War. The twin highlights of the memorial were sections taken from the Berlin Wall and from the Iron Curtain. The piece from Berlin was donated to VII Corps by U.S. Berlin Command; the other piece was donated by the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. There was a small stone patio, a bench, and a brass plaque. It was a modest affair, yet a small but visible reminder of the sacrifice and dedication it took to win America's "longest war."

The German guests did not know that VII Corps had been ordered to Saudi Arabia. The American attendees, of course, had watched AFN the night before. There was an unusual tension. As Franks looked out at the gathering and began to speak, he was struck by how the monument behind him was a visible sign of one familiar world now gone, and that VII Corps was now a visible sign of a different world whose outlines were not to be so sharp and clear as the one coming to an end. It was the end of one war in one theater under one set of strategic conditions well known to all, and the beginning of a deployment to another theater in another coalition for perhaps another war in a set of strategic conditions just beginning to emerge. There were consequences no one could predict with any probability or certainty. All the signs and symbolism were there. That reflection took all of about ten seconds to flash through Franks's brain as he realized he was neither poet nor philosopher at that moment, but a corps commander who had work to do and not much time for reflection.

A little later, at the reception, Franks announced to his German friends that the corps was going to the Gulf. At the same time he asked them, as friends, for their help.

He got it… more help from them and from the rest of the German people than he dreamed possible. The warmth and generosity of the Germans, from government and military officials down to families caring for families, gave splendid evidence of the friendship that had grown out of the long residence of the American army in Germany. Just as important, the Germans knew what to do and they got things done, efficiently and without complaint. ("We understand better than most what it means to send troops away," some of Franks's older German friends remarked.)

Later that morning, Franks assembled his new corps team in the command conference room, just upstairs from the secure conference room where they'd done most of their initial planning for the deployment: The 1st and 3rd Armored Division commanders, Ron Griffith and Butch Funk; the regimental commander of the 2nd ACR, Colonel Don Holder; the deputy corps commander, Gene Daniel; the chief of staff, John Landry; and the separate brigade commanders: the 14th MP commander, Rich Pomager; the 93rd Signal Brigade commander, Rich Walsh; the 207th MI Brigade commander, John Smith; the 11th Aviation Brigade commander, Johnnie Hitt; the 7th Engineer Brigade commander, Sam Raines; the 2nd COSCOM (Corps Support Command) commander, Bob McFarlin; the corps artillery commander, Creighton Abrams (son of the former Army Chief); the 7th Personnel Group commander, Jo Rusin; the 7th Finance Group commander, Russ Dowden; plus all of Fred Franks's staff, including the VII Corps base staff.

Fred Franks picks it up here:

TEAM BUILDING

Since the VII Corps that had been stationed in Germany was only a portion of the VII Corps that went to Saudi Arabia, special efforts had to be put into creating the new VII Corps team.

For the commander, team building is not simply a matter of bringing the new units on board, showing them they are welcome, and incorporating their work styles into your own; team building is a matter first of assessing the following skills and then of acting on your assessment. You have to know (1) how well the new leaders communicate with you and with one another; and (2) how well they execute whatever it is they are supposed to be doing. You want the new people to fit in, yes, but fitting in is not the first goal. You want them to fit in in such a way that you can use them to achieve the goals you set for them within the mission.

Communication involves, first of all, knowing who you're dealing with. You find this out partly during the regular meetings with your subordinates and partly by visiting them on their own turf. The normal give-and-take of meetings will give you a sense of what's important to the various subordinates, how each looks at situations under discussion, and so on. In an organization as large as an Army corps, there will of course be particular practices and policies that have to be insisted upon. These have to be done in a certain way and no other, and that's the way it must be. They are not negotiable. Franks calls such items FARs—"flat-ass rules." Other policies and practices are up for discussion; there are several possible ways to accomplish them. From observing how subordinates deal with these and how they interact with one another and with you during meetings, you get a sense of who you're dealing with. You also watch to see how quickly the others understand what you have to tell them. Some people understand you almost immediately. Others need detailed explanations. Others are full of questions. Some need very precise language in order to understand you. Others "get it" on the fly. None of these communication styles is necessarily wrong, or bad, though quickness and precision in communication is obviously desirable in the Army.

In combat, you're rarely in the same room with your most important subordinates, and when you see them, you don't usually spend two hours with them. You're with them for maybe fifteen minutes to half an hour at a time, or perhaps forty-five minutes at the maximum; then you're off to somewhere else. In those fifteen or so minutes, the communication has to be exceptionally quick, accurate, and disciplined. With some subordinates, you can always get your business done fast, often in less than ten minutes. Others might take an hour to cover the same business. If a commander is not able to see all of his subordinates during a given swing around his command, he might choose to see face-to-face only those subordinates who are not as quick, precise, and disciplined as the others. The quick ones can perhaps be handled over the phone.

You have to know how subordinates communicate, and then you have to know how well they execute in leadership situations. You find that out by visiting their positions and talking to the troops and the small-unit leaders. In time you begin to get an idea of what your leaders are made of, how they issue orders, how they react in leadership situations; and you can determine from that what types of missions you're comfortable giving them in future combat situations. What you're looking for is a commander, and his subordinates, who can do whatever you ask them to do; who can execute it very thoroughly and quickly, and up to a standard of perfection that they themselves will be proud of; who are capable of handling two or three significant operations simultaneously; and who are very resilient in their ability to handle mission planning.

When you are building teams, and teams of teams, that's what you are trying to build. And to the credit of Fred Franks and his colleagues, that was the kind of team he took to Saudi Arabia.

LEADERS' RECON SAUDI ARABIA 11 NOVEMBER TO 15 NOVEMBER 1990

On Sunday, 11 November, Franks flew to Riyadh in an Air Force C-21—the Air Force version of the Learjet. With him on the six-seater was the core group he wanted instantly up to speed in the new theater. The rest of his leaders were to arrive in Dammam two days later, on the thirteenth. On the Learjet with Franks were Brigadier General Bob McFarlin, the commander of the 7th Support Command (in charge of VII Corps logistics); Colonel Stan Cherrie, the G-3; Colonel Ed Simpson, the deputy chief of staff, whom Franks had appointed to be commander of the VII Corps port arrival unit; Colonel Rich Walsh, commander of the 93rd Signal Brigade (communications in the austere desert environment was going to be a big challenge for the corps signal brigade, so Franks wanted Rich Walsh to come down early to look around); and Major Toby Martinez, Franks's aide. The journey took a full day, including a fuel stop in Cairo. They arrived in Riyadh after dark, and they were met there by John Yeosock (to welcome Franks, Yeosock gave him his sand-colored baseball cap to replace Franks's floppy issue hat). After a working meal with Yeosock, the briefings started. The next four days were packed with meetings, briefings, and field trips to check out ports and the Tactical Assembly Areas, and to visit units and commanders already deployed in the desert.

For Franks and his leaders and staff, it was to be their first opportunity to get a personal sense of this very strange, unfamiliar, and harsh place where they were about to set up operations, of the people who lived there, and of the many challenges he and VII Corps were about to face. They had a lot to do in a short time; Franks's mind was working at top speed, taking in impressions from all of his senses, concentrating on details of briefings, taking notes, asking questions, doing whatever he could to get a feel for the operational situation, the training situation, the living situation for his troops. He was also aware that they were making a first impression on the others in the theater. Many of the units already there had been in theater for months, deterring further Iraqi aggression into Saudi Arabia. These soldiers had worked hard under exceedingly uneasy conditions (if the Republican Guards had continued to the south in August or September, Coalition airpower just may have stopped them, but the Coalition forces then on the ground would have had a very hard time keeping the Iraqis out of the Saudi oil fields). And they were understandably proud of their success. Franks wanted to make sure that his own people portrayed a professional force that was simply coming to do its part in a team that was already established. He didn't want any swagger or chest thumping.

And so Franks and the others went around — covering hundreds of kilometers. They saw the terrain, the ports, and the desert. They talked candidly to their fellow commanders and soldiers, and learned from them. And finally, General Schwarzkopf gave a mission briefing for all of his commanders, division and above. It was Schwarzkopf 's most important briefing of the war, the first and only mission briefing they were to get from him.

It was held on Wednesday morning, 14 November, in Dammam, in a building the U.S. military leased from the Saudis for use as a dining facility. The security at the door that morning was unusually tight.

All the U.S. commanders from all the services were there, through the chain of command to division commander. From VII Corps were Franks, Funk, Griffith, and Rhame. XVIII Corps included Luck, Peay, Tilelli, McCaffrey, and Johnson. Third Army had Yeosock and BG Steve Arnold, Yeosock's G-3. The Army attendees were a group of combat-seasoned veterans, all of whom had been through Vietnam and the long climb back.

General Norman Schwarzkopf, a large, imposing man, with a lot of flair and spark, was a splendid public speaker — forceful, articulate, inspiring — and this was to be one of his more spectacular performances. It was a fire-breathing talk, and he expected everyone in the room to breathe fire after they'd heard it. He wanted them to embrace his concept for defeating Saddam Hussein with the same passionate intensity that he himself felt.

The CINC walked into the room after everyone was seated. During his remarks, he occasionally referred to an outline on Army standard "butcher paper" charts; off to his side was a fifteen-foot-wide map of Kuwait and Iraq.

Franks and those around him took notes. For Franks and the others from VII Corps — the new guys in town, who had had only a few hours to get a sense of the country and what they were about to face — it was a time to take in and internalize. (New guys should be seen, and not heard.) They weren't ready with anything like operational questions, and even if they had been, it was clear that Schwarzkopf was not looking for feedback that day. Thus, from the CINC's opening words, Franks was intent on mentally processing the concept the CINC was laying out. ("What do I have to do to make my part of it work?") He was excited ("Here is our mission! It's a great mission! It's exactly what I want us to do!"), but it was a sharply focused, interior kind of excitement.

The briefing followed logical military format: it was a statement of the mission, preceded by enemy and friendly capabilities, and some restraints the CINC wanted imposed on his commanders.

He started by talking about security. Since the best source of intelligence the Iraqis had was the Western press, and since it was certain that the press would hit all the commanders with questions whenever the chance presented itself, commanders must not, he emphasized fiercely, discuss operational matters with them. "I will deal brutally with anyone who compromises anything from operations," Franks quoted in his journal.

These were the CINC's strategic objectives: to throw Iraq out of Kuwait, restore the government of Kuwait, defend Saudi Arabia, and free the U.S. hostages then held by Iraq. To accomplish those objectives, he continued, they would have to go after the Iraqi center of gravity, which he identified as Saddam Hussein himself, their chemical and biological weapons capability, and the Republican Guards.

The Iraqis' strength was in their numbers (at this point twenty-six divisions) and in their chemical capability. Their weakness was in their over-centralized command and control, their supply lines (they fought during the day and resupplied at night), and their limited air.

U.S. strength lay in air (especially in projection of strategic airpower), in ground technology (especially in tanks and at night), and in leadership.

At that point, Schwarzkopf outlined U.S. battlefield goals: "The first thing that we're going to have to do is attack leadership, and go after his command and control. Number two, we've got to gain and maintain air superiority. Number three, we need to cut totally his supply lines. We also need to destroy his chemical, biological, and nuclear capability. And finally, we need to destroy — not surround — I want you to destroy the Republican Guards. When you're done with them, I don't want them to be an effective fighting force."

The campaign would have four phases:

• PHASE I: Strategic air campaign (six days) aimed at Iraqi command and control, gaining air superiority, and destruction of strategic logistics.

• PHASE II: Gain air superiority in the Kuwaiti theater.

• PHASE III: Conduct battlefield preparation; that is, conduct tactical air operations on Iraqi positions on the ground in the Kuwaiti theater of operations (about twelve days).

• PHASE IV: Ground attack.

By now you could feel the intensity in the room. There was total concentration. There were no questions.

At that point the CINC turned to the plan for the ground offensive.

He listed the forces available as principally four corps equivalents: the U.S. Marines, Arab Corps, VII and XVIII Corps. Though the strategic aim of the offensive was to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait, the tactical aim of the offensive maneuver was to close the Iraqis — and especially the RGFC — in a box in and near Kuwait, to maneuver against them with the U.S. heavy punch, and then to destroy them. He talked about the adjustments that needed to be made as the enemy kept changing, and thought that it might not be until D-15 that battle plans would finally be decided.

The area of the maneuver was vast — larger than the state of Virginia. Part of the box's sides were natural, and part were, or would be, created by Coalition fighting forces. Looking at Kuwait: to the east was the natural barrier of the Gulf; to the north was the Euphrates, a potential barrier once air cut the bridges over it; to the south was Saudi Arabia, now closed to the Iraqis because of Desert Shield forces; and to the west was the desert vastness, the main corridor of attack. Schwarzkopf discussed the trafficability of the desert and directed the commanders to pay attention to that.

After noting that detailed intelligence of the Iraqi barrier system would be available by D-15, he emphasized, "Logistics is the long pole in the tent" — commanders must be prepared with logistics to support their operations — and directed them all to begin offensive training immediately. He added that he would reposition forces when the Iraqi recon capability was gone, and directed the Arab forces to liberate Kuwait City. And finally, he said, his worst-case scenario was that the attacking Coalition forces would be hung up in the Iraqi obstacle system and get hit by chemical attack. (Franks was to hear Schwarzkopf constantly stress the need to reduce casualties, a drive he shared with the CINC.)

He concluded, passionately, "Let me leave you with one thought, guys. In order for this to succeed — because the enemy is still going to outnumber us" — and because they had built what appeared to be a tough, extensive, potentially deadly barrier system along the border—"it is going to take… killer instinct on the part of all of our leaders out there… We need commanders in the lead who absolutely, clearly understand that they will get through" the barrier system. "And that once they are through, will move. We will attack, attack. I will look for commanders who can attack. We cannot afford failure. We will not fail."

And that was it. It was a masterful presentation in content, in format, and in motivational language. No one there could possibly have a question about what he was supposed to do.

Many outside the Army erroneously imagine that when a commander like Fred Franks receives a plan — such as the one General Schwarzkopf outlined — all he has to do, more or less, is follow the numbers. People tend to think the whole thing is completely worked out, like a recipe in a cook-book, and all that's left for the subordinate commander is to say, "Yes, sir," and go execute it.

Not true.

General Schwarzkopf 's campaign outline was indeed an excellent operations concept, but it did not provide — nor did it ever intend to provide — Fred Franks or Gary Luck or any of the other commanders more than a very general design for what they were supposed to do. The tactical details had to be worked out later. The outline defined the missions of each corps and its general scheme of maneuver; it gave each corps the sector it was to operate in (the corridors that Schwarzkopf talked about); and it laid out the phases of the campaign. But it was not at all specific in terms of the tactical operation.

So, in effect, the CINC was saying, "OK, VII Corps, your mission is to destroy the Republican Guards. And, XVIII Corps, your mission is to go up and interdict Highway 8. But how you do that, that's up to you." He even made a point of that during the briefing.

Consequently, as Franks was internalizing and processing the plan that morning, a host of questions was racing through his head: How extensive is the Iraqi barrier system in my sector? Will it go all the way across it? Will I have to breach the barrier before I can get my forces through? Or can I go around it, farther to the west? And how is the terrain out there? Can my heavy stuff pass over it? What options are available to the RGFC? What are my schemes of maneuver? How do I mass my corps for the RGFC destruction? How do I structure and orchestrate my corps for that attack? What are the battles and engagements I need to fight, sequentially and simultaneously, to get to and destroy the RGFC?

The CINC had nothing to say about that. That was Fred Franks's responsibility.

Some of them gave the obligatory expression of confidence and enthusiasm for the plan, but it was still little more than a concept or a notion. Fred Franks was already working the idea and analyzing the mission — keeping his own counsel until he had processed the task before him intellectually.

When the briefing was over, the CINC doubtless expected an outpouring of enthusiasm from his commanders, and he got it from some of them. But not from Fred Franks, which, for Franks, was certainly a mistake. For General Schwarzkopf, Franks's absence of outward display was interpreted as a lukewarm attitude toward the plan.

In fact, Franks was profoundly enthusiastic about the CINC's concept, and he was absolutely certain that when it came to a fight, his troops would win. Unfortunately, an excited outburst was the farthest thing from his mind just then. Instead, he was rapidly forming maneuver schemes in his head (hoping to give his commanders an early heads-up); he was thinking about Iraqi forces in front of the corps and about what the Republican Guards might do (since the VII Corps mission was force oriented); and he was thinking about force placement on the ground.

After General Schwarzkopf finished speaking, he invited the others up front to look more closely at the maps and the intelligence photos of the minefields and barrier systems, and the like. While Franks was up there, examining them, the CINC approached him and asked, "Hey, Fred, what do you think?"

And Franks answered, in a calm, confident, forceful, but professional voice, "We can do this. We'll make it happen."

For the CINC, that wasn't enough. It turned out to be a burr beneath Schwarzkopf 's skin.

Later, in General Schwarzkopf 's autobiography, It Doesn't Take a Hero, the general states that Franks was the one leader at the briefing who was not happy with the plan. In his words: "The only dissonant note was from Fred-die Franks: 'The plan looks good, but I don't have enough force to accomplish my mission.' He argued that I should give him the 1st Cavalry Division, which I was holding in reserve. I said I would consider it when the time came."

This conversation did not take place on 14 November — though later, in a December briefing, Franks stated that as a planning assumption he presumed that the 1st CAV would be released to VII Corps, if they weren't required to save some situation elsewhere (also a Third Army assumption and a normal planning assumption, since VII Corps was the main attack).

The dissonance between Generals Schwarzkopf and Franks was to grow, with consequences that were unfortunate.

Meanwhile, though Franks was certain that General Schwarzkopf's concept of attack was in fact the right one, with the right maneuver scheme, to achieve his goal of destroying the Republican Guard, nevertheless, he had a few questions about some of the tactical details that the CINC had left to be developed later. Franks actually thought he could help resolve these and be a team player. Since it would have been inappropriate and unprofessional to voice these concerns that day, he didn't, but later, at a more appropriate time, he went directly to John Yeosock and Steve Arnold, and even talked to the "Jedi Knights."

In his view, the CINC's campaign operational concept had three areas for further tactical discussion.

First: In the plan's original incarnation, XVIII Corps's attack corridor was many kilometers to the west of the VII Corps sector, which might limit the availability of XVIII Corps's combat power. Though XVIII Corps did not have the heavy combat power of VII Corps, it still had plenty. Yes, XVIII Corps should certainly push on up to Highway 8 and close that lane of escape for the Republican Guards, but if it was that far to the west, could it then move east fast enough to join its combat power to VII Corps's in a coordinated corps attack — if that was called for? If VII Corps attacked north-northeast, it would "pinch out" XVIII Corps. If XVIII Corps was just to sit on Highway 8 while the main battle was raging a couple of hundred kilometers east of them, all their combat power would be unavailable. (Later, the plan was altered, and the two corps were brought closer together.)

Second: The concept made assumptions about the isolation of the RGFC. It assumed that if the RGFC attempted to escape the theater, then the Euphrates bridges would be destroyed by air, which would make the Euphrates an anvil against which the Third Army hammer could pound the Guards. That detail remained to be planned and then executed.

Finally: There was no discussion of a final air-ground theater maneuver to complete the action and achieve the strategic objectives. There needed to be discussion of the endgame — the tactical finish that would best realize the Coalition's aims. The idea was to come up with some vision of the final disposition of all relevant forces — both air and ground — that would make the most long-term strategic sense. Those discussions would follow.

For Fred Franks and his commanders and staff, however, the leaders' recon turned out to be a terrific three days. Gary Luck and XVIII Corps had given them lessons learned and welcomed them to the team. The few small discords (not in fact then apparent to him) in no way diminished that. It was an intense, packed, and immensely productive time. They had a clear mission, clear goals, and enough work to fill forty-eight-hour days for the next several months. They had to bring the newly retailored VII Corps to the Gulf and prepare the corps to fight our nation's toughest opponents since the Viet Cong and NVA.

When Franks flew back to Stuttgart, the little C-21 was so stuffed with papers and maps in the aisles and beneath the seats, there was scarcely room for passengers.