Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

VII CORPS JUMP TAC IRAQ

At 1800 I got a call from Ron Griffith. He was in a situation that would delay his attack into al-Busayyah.

First AD was just outside Purple, he told me, and his G-2 had estimated that an Iraqi commando battalion, tank company, and some other infantry were in al-Busayyah, all positioned to protect the VII Iraqi Corps logistics base. The area around al-Busayyah was laced with four- to six-foot-deep wadis, and the Iraqi tanks were dispersed and dug into the terrain, as was the infantry. The commando battalion was in the town itself, thirty to thirty-five buildings of stone and thick adobe. Because he preferred not to get into a night fight that would set his mounted units against dismounted enemy troops, he wanted to request my OK to hold his mounted ground attack until first light the next day (though he would continue to attack by artillery and Apaches all night).

I figured the tactics were up to Ron, but the corps tempo was my business. My main corps focus for Ron was that he have 1st AD in Collins the next morning at 0900. On the other hand, since the RGFC and associated units were moving into a defensive set and were not a threat to maneuver against us, the sense of urgency to hit Purple by the end of the day and to position 1st AD on the northwest flank of the RGFC was no longer that great.

So Ron had it right. It made no sense to risk the casualties and possible fratricide that could result from a mounted attack at night into a dismounted defense in a village. (To do a night attack correctly, he would have had to go very slowly and deliberately, which would have ended up compromising our much greater firepower. If he had tried to go faster, he would have risked bypassing Iraqi infantry and getting involved in a 360-degree fight in a village.) It was better to secure the town in the morning, in daylight, when all the advantages would be with his troops. That should still give him plenty of time to turn ninety degrees right and be where I wanted him by 0900.

"Permission granted," I said, "as long as you are in the northern part of Collins by 0900, attacking east beside 3rd AD."

"Roger. We can do both."

Meanwhile, we were getting reports that the British had had enemy contact right after noon, soon after their lead units had exited the breach-head line attacking east. Between then and now, they had been overrunning HQs and capturing prisoners, and they were continuing to fight on into darkness (it got totally dark at about 1845 each day, which was around fifty minutes after sunset). The entire division was still not clear of the breach.

This was not good news, as it would delay the 1st INF move north to pass through the 2nd ACR.

Meanwhile, I heard from John Landry that we had no additional orders from Third Army, but he had learned from Steve Arnold that there was still concern about the VII Corps pace of attack. That really got my attention. I blew up over the phone to John.

"What the hell is wrong with them in Riyadh? Do they know what the hell is going on out here? I've talked to John Yeosock constantly to let him know what's happening. Here we are maneuvering the corps to get in position for the knockout of the RGFC, and they are concerned about progress? God damn it."

I had a lot on my mind from a long day of complex maneuvering and advance planning, and now this. No new orders. Only "concerns." Give me a break. If you want me to do something different, just tell me. I'm a soldier; I will execute. But "concerns"? Thoughts from J. F. C. Fuller's book Generalship: Its Disease and Cures and images of "chateau generals" during World War I danced in my head, but I said nothing of that. It was just normal commander frustration with higher HQ, I told myself. I let the moment pass. I thought the "concerns" in Riyadh also would pass when they had a clearer picture. But I also thought that I had better find out what the problem was.

As a commander, I was not prone to wide mood swings or loud outbursts. Some are, and use it as an effective command style. Not me. Competitive, yes. Hate to lose, yes. Iron will and fierce determination. Yes. But not a screamer. You work hard at keeping a cool head and maintaining the right balance of patience and impatience, at staying under control, able to think clearly when chaos threatens. If you constantly blow up at the least setbacks, your subordinates have a hard time understanding you, and soon get numb to the emotional outbursts, plus it clouds your thinking.

I also felt intense loyalty to my unit, like you do in a tight family. When something threatened my family — as these Riyadh "concerns" did — I got very combative. My first reaction was anger, but then I quickly cooled down and blamed it all on misunderstandings. I figured an explanation would clear it up. If that did not do it, then I would get some new orders to replace my current orders and intent from Third Army and CENTCOM.

"I'll call John Yeosock later and talk to him about it. Let's get the rest of this done," I said.

The other issue was our deep attack. I had wanted to attack deep with the 11th Aviation Brigade the previous night, but because of the time change of the corps attack, we hadn't been able to execute. Tonight I wanted them to go deep in front of 2nd ACR to help isolate the Iraqis in the battle space — to keep the units in the rear from reinforcing the units forward — and to destroy Iraqi units that were deep while 2nd ACR was doing the same thing close. That way, 2nd ACR would be better able to continue its advance until I got the 1st INF forward to take up the fight. The 11th Brigade was ready, and I had already ordered them to execute.

Then, at around 1800, the weather turned bad. Of all the four days of our battle, this night brought the most violent rainstorms: thunder, lightning, torrential rain, fast-forming ponds, and running water. Because of the bad weather, John Landry and John Davidson were unable to fly back to the main CP, so they spent the night at the jump TAC.

For most of the evening, we kept current inside the two M577 extensions behind the tracks. The maps were up, showing friendly and enemy situations. We were located with 3rd AD, of course, and had radio contact with 1st AD and 2nd ACR, but not with 1st INF or the British. Our communications were terrible. At that point, I did not have a single dependable long-haul comm line with which to talk to Third Army or my main CP.

The weather and comm situation, on top of the "concerns" from Riyadh, had me totally pissed off. To complicate matters, the main TAC was moving to catch up, but by now there was no hope that they would make it to our location before morning. So that night I was as frustrated as I had ever been as a commander. Worse, I could not do much about it.

It was not a good situation. There I was, commanding a four-division corps, and I was located in two M577s with twenty-four-foot canvas extensions, I had line-of-sight radios good for only about twenty kilometers, and one intermittent PCM line, and water was running through the sand in small rivers underneath the sides of the canvas extensions and right through the inside of our jump TAC. There were some dry islands, but mostly we stood in ankle-deep running water. The extensions on the M577s had been taken from the theater reserve in Germany, so they were old and they leaked. On occasion, water ran down our situation map, carrying with it to the wet ground some of the map stickers showing friendly and enemy situations and streaking the markings on the map. And in the middle of all that, Riyadh was expressing concerns.

We talked through FRAGPLAN 7 again that evening, and I got as much of an update as possible on friendly actions. Since I had just visited most of the units, there was not much new to report, and in any case the weather had slowed actions down. Aviation was completely grounded. When it storms in the flat desert, it storms. The troops must be having a miserable night, I thought.

At about 2100, I tried to call John Yeosock, but no luck. I could not get through on our comms. We continued to try on into the night. I decided to go over to Butch Funk's TAC, so I could get an update, order FRAGPLAN 7, and use Butch's comms — he had the more advanced MSE (Mobile Subscriber Equipment).

It was about a hundred meters' walk in the wind and driving rain and pitch blackness. We stumbled around and finally found the entrance.

Their TAC was complete. Four M577s were parked parallel, with canvas extensions out the back, making a work area of about thirty by thirty feet, all lit by power from their ever-running portable generators. Butch was inside an M577, busy with updates and planning of his own.

"Butch," I said, "give me a SITREP on your situation, and see if your folks can get through to Third Army in Riyadh."

"Roger," he answered, then gave me a complete rundown.

So far, 3rd AD had moved forward aggressively about eighty-five kilometers. At noon, they had gone into a division wedge, a formation of one brigade forward and two back side by side. To go from a column of brigades to a division wedge takes time and coordination; and since they were on the move, the maneuver had taken them the better part of four hours to complete. They were still moving.

During the day, they'd had some enemy actions, primarily from elements from the Iraqi 26th Infantry Division that had been bypassed by the 2nd ACR. The 4/7 Cavalry Squadron, whose mission was to guard the corps's east flank, had captured almost 200 prisoners. Other units in the division also reported prisoners and occasional incoming artillery. The total prisoner count was between 500 and 1,000.

The division was approximately thirty-five kilometers from Objective Collins, and not long ago his lead brigade had closed within about twelve kilometers of the rear of the 2nd ACR. They were right where I wanted them, reasonably well rested, and in an excellent logistics situation. I would now commit them to attack into the heart of the RGFC and associated units just to the east.

"Butch, I've ordered FRAGPLAN 7. Use those graphical control measures, except 1st INF will attack in place of 1st CAV. I want you to turn east, pass through and around the 2nd ACR at first light, and attack the RGFC as the middle division between 1st AD in the north and 1st INF in the south. You and 1st AD will be roughly on line, as Ron should be in the northern area of Collins by 0900 at the latest. First INF will probably not pass through 2nd ACR until late afternoon, so maintain contact with 2nd ACR to your south. Press the attack against the RGFC. No pauses."

"WILCO," Butch replied. He knew what he had to do. I did not need to give him any more orders than that.

After I finished my business with Butch, he went on to take care of other matters, and I tried once more to get John Yeosock.

Because Third Army was not hooked up directly to 3rd AD's MSE radio grid, the comms had to be rerouted through an improvised series of communication gateways in order to reach Third Army in Riyadh, which by now was almost 600 kilometers away. No easy task. It was close to 2300 before I got to talk to John Yeosock. I was inside one of the 3rd AD M577s, sitting on the floor of the track, straining to hear John over the noise inside the TAC.

"John," I said, "I ordered the corps to turn right, according to our FRAGPLAN 7. That activates the boundary between us and XVIII Corps to run east-west, and opens the attack corridor for XVIII Corps in the north for a two-corps attack. I am using 1st INF as my third division in the VII Corps fist. I assume all this is OK with you."

"Good," John replied. "Continue to attack. You are doing exactly as I want done."

That confirmed for me that we were doing precisely what we had discussed and war-gamed, and what Third Army had published in its order of 24 February.

"John," I went on, "my chief mentioned there might be some continuing dissatisfaction with corps movement."

"Not from me, but the CINC blew up this morning. He thought you should be moving faster."

"Don't you know what the hell is going on?" I shot back, frustrated that they did not seem to have a grasp that we had maneuvered the corps to deliver a deathblow to the RGFC. "We are turning the corps ninety degrees east into the RGFC and will hit them with a three-division fist tomorrow. I thought we were doing great, considering the number of units and vehicles we've got crammed into this small maneuver space."

"I'm aware of all that," John replied, "and I understand everything you're trying to do. You have the best feel for the situation, Fred. I'm pleased with what VII Corps is doing."

"Would it do any good for me to talk directly to General Schwarzkopf and explain what we are doing?" I asked, not yet satisfied that the "concerns" issue had been laid to rest.

"Settle down, Fred. It's OK now. The CINC is satisfied with what is happening. He doesn't want the pace any faster now. He's concerned with fratricide if the pace gets too fast. So his intent is for deliberate operations with low casualties. Right now, the CINC wants us to fight smart, deliberately, with small casualties, develop the situation, and fix by fires."

"That's good to hear," I said. So the flap in Riyadh really was no big deal, just the normal give-and-take of command in war. You do not record every mood swing or discussion with subordinates. But I did think that if I talked to Schwarzkopf, I could give him some direct info from the battlefield. I knew that I would have appreciated a call from the actual battlefield if I were in his place.

"Do you still think I should talk to the CINC…?"

"Good idea. Go ahead and talk to him, probably tomorrow," John said.

That made sense — it was past midnight by this time, and from what John just told me, I could tell that the storm in Riyadh had passed. But I still had no idea what it all meant.

I do not think I shared any of this with Butch. It was my business to deal with higher HQ, absorb any problems, and shield the corps from them, just as John Yeosock was doing for me.

TACTICAL MANEUVERS

All that night, out in the rainy, windy desert ahead of us and for dozens of kilometers on either side, commanders of smaller units were performing the same kind of tasks we were — the difficult, highly skilled, and intensely focused work of organizing their forces and maneuvering their teams in such a way that their piece of the corps fist would hit the enemy with maximum impact.

How do you do that? How do you maneuver for maximum combat power concentration at the right place at the right time? By watching combat alignments and movement friction, and by a lot of advance practice.

You have to keep your own individual unit in the right formation, while keeping those units who are supporting you, or who are part of the same attack, in the right position relative to your unit. You need the appropriate combination of tanks, infantry, artillery, and maybe engineers to be where they're supposed to be. You need the intelligence units positioned so that they can give you the latest information. You need your formation fueled and supplied with ammo and other classes of supplies, so that they don't run out during the fight. You also want to finish the current fight in the right position and combination of units to flow right into the next one.

In the desert, taking care of all of these requirements means constant formation adjustment. For example, if you want to take a unit out of the lead and put in a fresh formation, that means you have to pass one unit through another. For armored brigades, this involves 2,000 vehicles passing through another 2,000, which requires careful coordination just to keep the units from running into one another. If a battle is going on, then the passed unit also has to render tactical assistance to the passing one in order to shift the battle to them.

While you are arranging and maneuvering, you can never lose sight of physical friction. Armored formations have to refuel and rearm, which takes time. They have to repair vehicles with maintenance problems and perform preventive maintenance — clean air filters, check oil levels, adjust track tension, and the like. If you can, you combine maintenance with fuel-rearm halts.

Meanwhile, different vehicles move at different speeds. Tanks go much faster than artillery vehicles, so in an attack you have to make sure that one doesn't outrun the other. Fuel trucks also are slower than tanks and Bradleys cross-country, and since they often can't go where the others can go, you have to bring the tanks and Bradleys to them.

Movement at night is much slower than in the day. You have to work extra hard to maintain unit integrity and to keep vehicles from wandering off course, and when combat is imminent, the pace is even slower. You want to be certain you know where all your vehicles are located before you engage the enemy. Because only a few selected commanders' vehicles in each formation had GPS or LORAN, everyone else had to use those vehicles as a guide, employing either night-vision devices or light signals — a tough task. The high winds and rain complicated these maneuvers… which became especially difficult if the enemy had been bypassed and there was action both to the front and rear.

Soldier fatigue also affects speed. If you're standing in turrets or lying in drivers' compartments for a long time, you get tired and lose concentration. You must give them breaks from time to time.

To do everything you need to do rapidly takes much practice. Because of the limited maneuver possibilities in Germany, VII Corps hadn't had much major unit maneuver practice there, and there hadn't been any opportunity at all to practice desert formations such as the wedge or the box until we actually deployed in Saudi Arabia (some of the formations hadn't even been invented yet). That was why I had so forcefully stressed large-unit training skills in our first meeting on 9 November. As it was, the training time had been limited, and our only full-scale rehearsal was the 180-kilometer move from our TAA to our attack positions in mid-February. If we had gone to war right off the ships and without GPS, our maneuvers on the night of the twenty-fifth and all through the rest of our attack would have been more difficult. That we got it all done in a small attack zone during the eighty-nine hours of the war was a great tribute to the leaders, the soldiers, and to mission-focused training.

As Ron Griffith put it after the war: "The thing that we didn't have a sense for, because we had never maneuvered on that scale before, is how to array your battle formations. How long does it take, for example, if you decide to provide a base of fire with one brigade and to envelop twenty-five or thirty kilometers into the rear with another brigade? Sometimes our assessment of how long it would take to conduct a particular maneuver would be off by as much as 300 percent… Well, it might take five hours to do that or it might take an hour and fifteen minutes. And so we practiced."

These were our basic maneuver formations:

DIVISIONS had four formations: a column of brigades; a "desert" wedge; two brigades forward and one in reserve; and three brigades abreast. From those basic maneuver sets, division commanders could set a base of fire and maneuver to attack.

The division commanders also experimented with aviation. They started out by using their AH-64s' fire to support the attacking ground units, but when they discovered that in-close did not work due to sand clutter (the normal swirl of sand dust kicked up by maneuvering tracked vehicles obscures vehicles from the air and makes laser designation of targets difficult), they quickly adapted by sending the Apaches deeper in front.

On the other hand, since in many cases the Iraqi artillery outranged ours, the commanders pulled their cannon and rocket (MLRS) artillery in close to the lead maneuver units so that they could range Iraqi artillery in counterfire. This even meant pushing the MLRS well forward, which was a violation of doctrine, but it fit the battle conditions.

BRIGADES also had their own attack formations, which resembled division formations: a star, with two battalions forward and two back, plus artillery behind; a wedge, with one battalion forward and two abreast and behind, plus artillery right behind the lead task force; a column of battalions (one behind the other); two brigades up abreast and one back; and the brigade on line with three or four battalion task forces abreast. These basic formations gave the brigade commanders the versatility and options they needed. They used them all.

BATTALIONS. Normally there were no "pure" battalions of "only" tanks or Bradleys. In order to get the versatility and combined-arms effects of tanks and infantry, the U.S. Army combined them into task forces, which used the battalion command structure, but involved exchanging companies between battalions. In other words, a tank battalion of four companies would send one of its companies to a Bradley battalion in exchange for a Bradley company, thus making both battalions into task forces. They used the same maneuver formations as the brigades, except that the companies replaced the battalions in the formation alignments: a box — two companies up and two back; a diamond — one company forward, two behind, and one trailing; or all companies on line abreast.

Refueling on the move (ROM) was another thing that units worked hard to perfect, and our soldiers' skill in execution would have made a pit crew at the Indy 500 proud. By G-Day, ROM was a well-choreographed drill, practiced many times in training in the desert: Fuel trucks were brought forward and set up at spots in the desert, then unit vehicles lined up at these "pit" stops and took on fuel on either side of the truck. Simultaneously, tank crews, before or after refueling, removed air filters (twenty- to thirty-pound metal boxes) from tanks, blew compressed air through them to clean out sand, and performed other maintenance while also checking the tank's main gun boresight (to ensure that the cannon and sights were both on the same spot).

VII CORPS JUMP TAC CP

At around 0100, I went back to the two M577s to see if there had been any change while I was gone. The rain and high winds continued, and the soldiers were wet and cold. The official weather data said we were to have 81 percent illumination, but with cloud cover and rain, I could barely see Toby a few feet away as we stumbled around in the rain getting back to the TAC. I could picture the commanders and soldiers trying to keep the units together while continuing to move and refuel in this weather.

Though the bad weather had caused cancellation of our deep aviation attack, other actions continued.

Since 1500 the day before, 1st AD had attacked the almost 140 kilometers to al-Busayyah and destroyed the better part of a reinforced Iraqi brigade and other Iraqi units in their zone. They had reported destroying 2 tanks, 25 armored personnel carriers, 9 artillery pieces, 48 trucks, 14 air defense pieces, and capturing over 300 prisoners (the accounts of prisoners continued to vary widely). Before the violent rainstorms, their aviation brigade Apaches had struck hard at Iraqi positions in al-Busayyah, and the division was continuing to pound Iraqi targets in the town with cannon and MLRS artillery. Ron had them exactly where I wanted them. The division was in an excellent logistics posture, and the troops were reasonably fresh, although there would not be much rest with the weather that night.

Second ACR had also been active in combat. Though Don Holder had had to cancel a planned Apache attack into the Tawalkana, he had managed to launch a successful MLRS raid that night as a follow-through on my order to keep the pressure on the RGFC. He'd sent Company M of 3rd Squadron to escort the nine-launcher MLRS battery C/4-27 FA.

The unit commanders remembered the action like this: C Battery:

"Guarded by the tank company from 3/2 ACR, C Battery moved outside the regimental defenses to fire the missions. The first two, at 2230 and 0100, were executed unimpeded. The third, at 0430 on the twenty-sixth, was interrupted as the launchers moved behind the tank company through the regimental defenses. An MTLB unit of estimated company size was moving up the MSR to investigate the rocket fires. The MTLBs ran into the tank company and a short, violent fight ensued. The launchers quickly returned to the regimental sector while the 3rd Squadron tanks destroyed the MTLBs."

The account by Company M reads, "At 0135 the first platoon reported five possible enemy vehicles… The vehicles had been positively identified as two T-55s, MTLB-PC, jeep, and a truck by several gunners in the company and reported their ranges varying from 3,000 to 3,500 meters and moving out of the effective direct-fire range. The gunners' fingers were getting itchy as the commander gave permission for the first platoon elements who could observe the enemy vehicles to engage. The weather was still zero from cloud cover. The first rounds from the M1A1 120-mm main guns rang out and declared target hits. Brilliant sparks flew from targets as M829A1 sabot rounds found their mark. The engagement lasted all of ten minutes, as twenty-three sabot rounds traveled downrange, destroying the enemy vehicles at ranges from 3,000 to 4,100 meters… The enemy had been completely surprised and seemed confused as vehicles moved in every direction. It had been a simple ambush that had taken place, and was so effective and ran so smoothly that the men of Mad-Dog developed unimaginable confidence and were actually ecstatic that the mission went so well in such miserable weather. At 0530, Company M conducted stand-to and at 0615 moved out due east… All of the men were silent as we made our way through the area. Vehicles were still burning and bodies were strewn about the sand. We found two survivors in the area and brought the medics forward to treat them. We felt no regrets. We had done our job and done it well. We were alert that night and were alive to see the next day."

Meanwhile, I knew that the British were having some actions as well, but I didn't know the nature of them. My British liaison team was with the main TAC, caught in the middle of the 3rd AD mass of vehicles. Rupert's passage had begun around noon, and given the usual friction of lanes closed or wrong-way traffic, I figured that both his 7 Brigade and 4 Brigade were through the breach by now and well into the attack. Rupert had planned a generally due-east attack on two axes out of the breach, one in the north for 7 Brigade and one on the south for 4 Brigade.

I found out later that 7 Brigade had passed at about midday, immediately run into enemy contact, and had destroyed tanks and other armored vehicles. They had been joined just after dark by 4 Brigade attacking south of them on a due-east axis.

All this was happening as we listened to the rain crash on the canvas extensions and watched the water run through the sand all around our feet.

For a time, I stared at the map in silence, focusing on what we had to do the next day and the decisions I needed to make then, and trying to think ahead to the day after that. So far I was really pleased with our tactical situation: the hastily defending enemy versus our available combat power, our ability to focus it on the enemy, and the general condition of our troops. Based on the developing clearer picture of the Iraqis, we were in the right place at the right time in the right combination; and I knew I had picked the right time and place for our RGFC battles. We had the Iraqis where we wanted them.

The rain showed no signs of letting up. Shortly after 0100, I decided to get some rest.

Because John Landry had not been able to make the trip back to the main CP, he and I shared a small tent with two canvas GI cots and no lights that Toby had gotten from 3rd AD. It was better shelter than most of the soldiers of VII Corps had that night. At least we were dry. I slept on the cot minus only my shoulder holster, which I set down in my Kevlar, within easy reach.

0400 VII CORPS JUMP TAC EIGHTY KILOMETERS INTO IRAQ

It was a short night. Toby shook me awake at about 0400 with some black coffee he had scrounged up from somewhere. I used a portable elec-tric razor to shave quickly, then strapped on my shoulder holster and Kevlar and went the fifty feet to the jump TAC. John Landry joined me, and we got a tactical update before John went back to the corps main CP. It had stopped raining, but it was still dark. I could not hear any weapons firing, but I could hear sounds of tracked and wheeled vehicles moving. Third AD would be rolling into the attack.

My sleep had probably been longer and more comfortable than what most of the soldiers in VII Corps had gotten. Since we were right out there in the middle of the corps, I had a good idea of how most of the soldiers and leaders had spent the night. Many were in combat. Others were refueling and doing maintenance. Commanders were collecting units, planning for their next move, and looking to execute their part of FRAGPLAN 7.

I wondered what picture they had in Riyadh of what we were doing.

The comms were still not good, but the troops were working as best they could to fix them. The long-haul comms continued to be intermittent, so I could not talk reliably either to the main CP or to Third Army, but we could get through; nor did I have consistent communications with the British or 1st INF.

In one respect, the fragile comms were a consequence of a deliberate choice I had made. I had wanted to be up front so that I could talk face-to-face with my commanders, feel the tempo of the fight and of our own movement, and monitor the condition of my soldiers. I had known the comms would be fragile from time to time, but had decided it was a risk I was prepared to take rather than be where my comms were good but I was out of personal touch with commanders and soldiers and the rapidly changing situation. What I lost in comms, I gained in "fingerspitzengefuhl."

However, one effect of the situation was that the official hard copy of the FRAGPLAN 7 execution did not reach all units until well past midnight. Third AD plans officer, Major John Rosenberger, wrote the 3rd AD attack order out longhand, three pages, double-spaced, and faxed it to subordinate units. Others made similar arrangements. Tom Rhame did much of his orally as his units began to move forward. It was no problem. From our meetings, I knew they knew what to do.

Today we would hit the Tawalkana and subordinate units hard. In fact, we had hit the security zone of the developing defense the day before at around noon; and 2nd ACR had continued to intercept units moving to get into the forming defense. With that in mind, I'd figured the 2nd ACR would be well into the fight by midmorning, which is why I had wanted Griffith and Funk on line to their north by that time. So that, later this morning, we would be in our fist, with 1st AD in the north, 3rd AD in the center, and 2nd ACR in the south. Later, the 1st INF (replacing the CENTCOM-held 1st CAV) would pass through the regiment and give us our three-division fist. By that time, in addition to the RGFC Tawalkana and other armored divisions in the area, we also would be fighting the RGFC Medina. We would do all that today, while maintaining the momentum of the attack through the following day to destroy the rest of the RGFC units in our sector.

Even though I was aware that the comms limited our information, I asked for a quick update on the battle activities of VII Corps units. I wanted to hear what they had, then go look for myself.

I was interested in the same questions discussed the morning before.

First I wanted to hear about the enemy, and I had a number of sharp questions for the assistant G-2, Captain Bill Eisel, about what the RGFC[36] was doing.

It was ever more clear that the RGFC theater command had a defensive plan and were executing it. They were not as skillful at the tactical level as our troops, but they had a plan! By now I figured they knew we were here. What they still did not know was the size of our force, the power of our rolling armor attack, or the direction from which we would hit them. They would find out the answers to those questions shortly. They were about to get hit by the largest combined-armored corps in the history of the U.S. Army ever to engage in an attack.

So, as battered as they might be from Coalition air attacks, the RGFC HQ was trying to set a defense in depth that would allow its forces to get out of Kuwait (as Don Holder had suggested yesterday) and would set a series of defensive belts in front of Basra, their only port. We knew from studying the Iraq-Iran War that the Iraqis had put up a tough defense of Basra.

The RGFC tactic was to throw armor/mechanized infantry in our way. As they could perform only limited maneuvers, it was mainly a brute-force defense thickened by all the units in the area (as confirmed by the Third Army intel feed and our own intel sources). That is why we ran into so many different units during the battles over the next two days. The 1st AD and the 3rd AD fought elements of the 12th, 17th, 52nd, and 10th Armored. In addition, the 1st AD fought the northern brigade of the Tawalkana, the Medina, and a brigade of the Adnan.

As what the Iraqis were doing became ever clearer, it also became clearer to me that our tactics and maneuvers had been exactly right. We had them where we wanted them. They had fixed themselves. The timing was perfect, and, further, the time we had taken to keep concentrated had not hurt us at all, for at that moment on the twenty-sixth, we were still catching the Iraqis trying to form a defense. In other words, our forecast had turned out right for both our own force and the enemy, and we had our force in the right place at the right time. It does not get much better than that in maneuver warfare!

Meanwhile, as we turned ninety degrees east, I also wanted to keep track of the progress of XVIII Corps. If their attack east did not move at the pace of ours, Ron Griffith and the 1st AD would have an open flank. Open flanks in the desert are no big deal, unless the enemy can do something about it. At that point, the RGFC still had its three Guards infantry divisions to the north of our attack zone (that is, in the XVIII Corps zone). As for the third heavy Republican Guards division, the Hammurabi, I was not sure where they were just then or how the RGFC would play them in the defense. (I learned later that they were in fact still east of the Tawalkana and Medina, standing between these divisions and Basra, and also moving north to reinforce the Nebuchadnezzar, which was an RGFC infantry division.) But it was at least clear that we had the Tawalkana and Medina in our zone now, along with three or four associated divisions of 50 percent strength or better. With the new Third Army boundaries, significant elements of the RGFC were now in the zone of attack of XVIII Corps, not just of VII Corps.

Our own situation was still good.

The British 1st Armored Division had completed its passage of lines through the 1st INF at about 0300. My division commanders had estimated it would take twelve hours, but it had actually taken them fifteen.

It was then that I learned that the British had been in contact with the Iraqis almost from the time 7 Brigade had exited the breach the afternoon before. Rupert had then had 7 Brigade attack in the north of the British sector, since that sector contained the Iraqi forces that could threaten the rear of our envelopment force. Four Brigade soon followed and attacked in the southern half of the British sector. The lead units of 4 Brigade had had combat actions the previous night, even as the rear of the brigade and division support units were clearing the breach. Both brigades were continuing to attack elements of what was left of the Iraqi VII Corps frontline infantry divisions (the 48th, 25th, 31st, and 27th) and the deeper-positioned tactical reserve, the Iraqi 52nd Division.

Later I would know the details. According to Brigadier Patrick Cordingly of 7 Brigade, that afternoon at 1500, after passing through the breach, "It was cold; it was wet and it was overcast and we were wearing NBC suits and quite expecting the enemy to use chemical weapons against us… During the ground war, the brigade was involved in six formal… attacks in the first thirty-six hours… We destroyed some 150 tanks and armored vehicles and took over 3,000 prisoners (in an attack that covered over 300 kilometers)." He relates the first of those attacks (actually the first tank and armored infantry attack in British army history) early on the evening of 25 February by the Scots Dragoon Guards on an Iraqi communication and logistics site: "As night fell, the columns of tanks closed up. Only the red turret lights betrayed the presence of the mass of moving armor. Suddenly, reports of the enemy came in from D Squadron (Challenger tank company) on the right. It wasn't a preplanned attack, but we knew that there was a defended divisional headquarters in the area. As we advanced into the mine belt, the tanks began to pick up the objective with their thermal sights… It was a particularly unpleasant night; it was raining quite heavily, and visibility was down to about fifteen meters before you could see anything the size of a Warrior. It was absolutely black. Thirty seconds before we went in, the tanks opened up, and when the vehicles they hit started burning, the infantry had a reference point to aim for… And when the infantry debussed and stepped into the blackness, it was a step into the unknown for them… Bullets, both friendly and enemy, seemed to be flying everywhere. Private Evans's life was saved when an AK-47 bullet lodged in a rifle magazine in his breast pocket… We also had another tank and one of the Milans grouped together, putting down fire support as that platoon ran in. As soon as another position was identified, fire was put down… Some of the assaults were very tight and it was undoubtedly a concerning time… although we had taken five casualties, we all knew that whatever else happened, we had done it, and despite atrocious conditions, it had worked."

Here is another battle account by Major Simon Knapper, commander of A Company, Staffordshire Regiment — an armored infantry battalion comprising two Warrior and two Challenger tank companies commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Rogers, 7 Brigade. The time was approximately 2100 25 February. "It wasn't a preplanned attack. We knew that there was a communications site in that area and we knew our battle group had been tasked to clear it… The whole area was quite clearly still occupied, and therefore we went into a quick attack on it… Thirty seconds before H-Hour, the tanks opened fire, destroying the vehicles and generator… The tanks led us to exactly the right places, and in the last 300 meters, the Warriors broke forward of the protective screen of tanks and opened up with their chain guns. We debussed the men on site… All the time there was this incredible noise of firing; cannon fire and small arms and tracer bouncing everywhere." As part of 7 Brigade, this battalion had crossed Phase Line New Jersey out of the 1st INF Division breach at 1525 on 25 February, and attacked east. The attack described by Major Knapper was conducted in a driving rainstorm, lasted about an hour and a half, and resulted in one British soldier wounded. They captured about fifty Iraqis, and the battalion destroyed the CP complex. Other units of the 1st UK had been in similar engagements. "I am very proud of what the company achieved that night," Major Knapper ends his account. "It was the first armored infantry attack of the war, and it worked."

1ST INF had left a task force in the breach and were just now beginning to move forward to get into position to pass through 2nd ACR. As I heard this, it went through my mind that 2nd ACR would be moving east and attacking Iraqi units as 1st INF caught up to them, also moving east. That posed a difficult time/distance problem.

The key question was: Where should we make the passage and when? I needed to make that decision today. In the back of my mind, I wanted the passage to be event-driven and not time-driven — that is, I wanted the 2nd ACR to get as far into the Tawalkana as their combat power permitted, and then I'd pass the 1st INF to take up the attack. I did not want to set a definite time for the passage to happen. To do that might prematurely stop the 2nd ACR or cause them to wait while the 1st INF made its way forward, thus giving the Tawalkana more time to thicken the defense with more units, mines, and artillery. At this point, I still believed that 2nd ACR would get about as far as they could into the Tawalkana defense by late afternoon — still in daylight. By that time, 1st INF should be ready to make the forward passage and take up the fight.

What I did not know then, and did not learn until after the war, was that the zone for the 1st INF to move forward, between the 1st UK attacking east and the 3rd AD moving northeast, had been drawn so narrow that Tom Rhame was forced to move in a column of brigades, thus slowing his movement and forcing him to shift formation later — a time-consuming task. Our staff had to rush the drawing of a sector after I had made the change to FRAGPLAN 7 that replaced 1st CAV with 1st INF. The weather also affected their movement rate. It continued to be lousy, with sandstorms.

1ST AD had pounded Objective Purple for the rest of the night and were about to attack to seize it. During the night, they had fired a total of 340 MLRS rockets and 1,920 155-mm DPICM[37] artillery rounds into targets on and around Purple. Ron liked to pound the Iraqis with artillery, and so did I.

Between 1500 on the twenty-fourth until midnight on the twenty-fifth, the division had crossed the berm, moved the fifty or so kilometers through the boulder- and wadi-laced terrain, then taken over the sector from the 2nd ACR, fought a brigade-sized fight, and moved the 8,000-vehicle division nearly 140 kilometers to al-Busayyah. They had been moving during the twenty-fifth in a division wedge, with 1/1 Cavalry Squadron as a covering force. The 1st Brigade was the lead of the division main body, followed by the 2nd Brigade on the west and the 3rd Brigade on the east. Artillery was in the middle of each brigade formation.

When Ron had encountered elements of a brigade of the Iraqi 26th Division, he had left the 3rd Brigade to finish that fight and pushed the rest of the division forward to just outside al-Busayyah. That meant shifting to a formation of two brigades on line, the 2nd on the left and the 1st on the right. The 3rd Brigade, commanded by Colonel Dan Zanini, closed behind the 1st Brigade later that night, after finishing their fight. At 0500 the morning of the twenty-sixth, after refueling, 3rd Brigade bypassed Purple to the east, wheeled ninety degrees to an easterly attack orientation, and set the 1st AD baseline along Phase Line Smash. Later that morning, 1st and 2nd Brigades would join them giving the division the 1/1 CAV out front, followed by the 2nd, 1st, and 3rd Brigades from north to south. It was a hell of a maneuver, fighting and moving without stopping over thirty kilometers of territory. The division reported that on the twenty-fifth they had destroyed 27 armored vehicles, 9 artillery pieces, 48 trucks, 14 air defense systems, and had counted 314 prisoners, although the total was probably double. The 3rd Brigade of the Iraqi 26th Division had ceased to exist; they had overrun it.

Today they would move farther, after the right turn, and would attack into the northern part of the defense that the Tawalkana was trying to set. After the turn, they would have an open flank to the north, if XVIII Corps did not rapidly refuel and turn east as well.

Meanwhile, the 75th Artillery Brigade was not yet back with them from their breach mission. That was troublesome to me, as the 42nd had already linked up with the 3rd AD. I'd have to keep that on my mind and make sure it happened.

Ron and 1st AD would have their hands full today.

Here is how TF 2/70, 1st AD, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Steve Whitcomb, which consisted of three M1A1 companies and a Bradley company, spent the night on the outskirts of al-Busayyah: "TF 2-70 arrived at PL South Carolina [about 120 kilometers into Iraq] after 2130 and began its move into position. I wanted to get ourselves set to kick off the attack so that we would not have to reposition the next morning. The wind howled at fifty-plus knots, the cloud cover was low, and we had driving rain. Vehicles were refueled and limited maintenance pulled. The task force was settled in by 0030. The brigade's direct-support artillery battalion, 2–1 Field Artillery, Iron Deuce, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Jim Unterseher, fired harassing and interdiction fires all night on al-Busayyah. Multiple-Launched Rocket Systems pounded the town in preparation for the morning attack. The task force S-3 coordinated with the brigade S-3, and at 0100 returned with the attack order. The task force plan was prepared and approved by 0230. We issued a frag order and briefed the plan at 0500."

This task force attacked that morning, 26 February, at BMNT (about 0540) as one of four task forces subordinate to 2nd Brigade and as part of a two-brigade attack (the first brigade had three task forces) on al-Busayyah. When they finished the almost four-hour attack, this task force had destroyed seven tanks, two BRDMs (wheeled infantry carriers), one BMP, and twenty-five trucks, and captured sixteen enemy soldiers. They had no casualties (their medics treated Iraqi wounded later that morning). They then turned right ninety degrees with the rest of 1st AD and pressed on toward the RGFC.

3RD AD was poised to pass around the 2nd ACR to the north and slam due east into the Tawalkana. They had been in a division wedge and had reported taking more than 200 prisoners the night before (in fact, I knew from my meetings with Butch Funk that the totals were much higher than that). Because they had been corps reserve, they had had little enemy contact the first day and a half, and so they would be the most rested of our divisions. When I had given Butch the FRAGPLAN 7 execute order the night before, that had meant, among other things, that they were no longer our reserve, and I was sending them into the heart of the setting Iraqi defense. They were going to be the first division to hit the Tawalkana — which was the right spot in the attack for my freshest division, especially since their nickname was the "Spearhead" Division (Butch Funk had even found the original "Spearhead" emblem from World War II and had it stenciled on the 3rd AD vehicles. In the coming attacks, they would live up to their World War II reputation and then some).

The night before, after a cross-desert journey of 100 kilometers, the 42nd Artillery Brigade, commanded by Colonel Morrie Boyd, had linked up with the 3rd AD with his approximately 600 track and wheeled vehicles. The feat did not surprise me, as I had seen Morrie Boyd in action in a few other leadership situations and knew he could make that happen.

Here is how TF 4/67, 3rd AD, which consisted of three M1A1 companies and a Bradley company, and was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Reischl, spent the night: "At dark the task force continued to move, now into rain, blowing sand, and cloud cover that reduced visibility to less than fifty meters. The move was complicated by loss of satellite and LORAN coverage from 1800 to 1900 hours; the GPS and LORAN position-locating devices were useless. The task force tightened up the formation and used compasses and a lone inertial navigation device in a Fuchs chemical recon vehicle as guides and continued to move in sector. A halt was called at 2030 hours, and the next few hours were spent collecting vehicles, refueling, and repairing weather damage to the equipment… On 25 February the task force had advanced another eighty-five kilometers… Fifty percent alert for security and four hours of sleep nightly for all personnel was the norm during the move through the desert. The advance was resumed at first light on 26 February, amid reports of enemy movement and contact forward of the brigade."

The nights referred to were 24 and 25 February. This task force was part of the 3rd Brigade, at that time in reserve in the 3rd AD, directly behind the two leading brigades, 1st and 2nd. Third Brigade was part of the 3rd AD attacks the nights of 26 and 27 February.

2ND ACR had spent the remainder of the night in an active horseshoe defense astride an Iraqi main supply route that the regiment called Blacktop. It was actually the IPSA Pipeline Road along Phase Line Smash. They were there in position to stop Iraqi units from using that route out of Kuwait, either to join the Tawalkana's defense against our attack or to escape the theater.

Though I was a little surprised to see that the 2nd ACR had not moved forward during the night to "maintain pressure," I had left the tactics up to Don Holder. Don had used the time for local actions to block the Iraqis and to get orders out appropriate to the change in mission I had given him. Given the terrible weather that had canceled the aviation strikes, and the change in mission, I supported his choice.

Even if they weren't pressing ahead, they weren't sitting on their hands, either. In addition to the action of Company M and the MLRS, they had also had other enemy actions, from an engagement against Iraqi dismounted infantry to heavier action by 2nd Squadron, which had destroyed nine MTLBs and a T-55. Until 0300, most of the action seemed to be in the north of their sector, which is where we were about to attack with the 3rd AD. At a little after 0500 this morning, they reported that 3rd Squadron had turned back an Iraqi recon company attack, destroying twelve vehicles and taking sixty-five prisoners. It had not been an uneventful night for the 2nd ACR.

Today, they were moving out to gain and maintain contact, to pass 3rd AD to their north, and to be prepared at some point to pass the 1st INF through.

The reports to Riyadh, meanwhile, lagged well behind many of these actions, and once or twice they were downright wrong. For instance, the official VII Corps situational report that went to Riyadh as of midnight 25 February (almost two hours after these engagements and actions) said, "Units are in hasty defensive positions preparing to attack BMNT 27 Feb" — !!?? And of the British, it said, "The passage of lines through 1ID went extremely smoothly and according to plan… By 180 °C [local time] 7th ARMD had cleared the breach. Fourth ARMD began moving at 1325C from staging area and should complete passage NLT [not later than] 26030 °C" (that is, at 0300 on the twenty-sixth). Because I was out of communications with the corps main CP, the main was out of line-of-sight communications with the units, and many CPs were on the move, I should not have been surprised at this information error.

Friendly information was always behind in the attack. The faster the tempo of the attack, the more behind it was.

There was no mention of the fact that the British had been in contact with the enemy and were fighting, nor of 2nd ACR's activities, nor of the 1st AD attacks by fire on al-Busayyah. It was not surprising, since the VII Corps main relied on reports from subordinate units, and just as the main usually cut off its information at a definite time, subordinate units usually cut off their information at a somewhat earlier time. If they had to get a report to the VII Corps main CP by 2300 (to give the main an hour to prepare for its midnight transmission to Third Army), they would probably cut their own information off at 2200 or earlier. So by the time the consolidated VII Corps report went to Riyadh at 2400, the information from the division CPs was already at least three hours old.

Throw in the weather and interrupted communications from the jump TAC to the main CP, and matters get worse. Worse still, the Third Army liaison officer, Colonel Rock, was stuck with the corps TAC CP in the middle of the 3rd AD sea of vehicles.

In the absence of any kind of automatic electronic update of the maps at each echelon, this is the way it got done. So by the time the CINC got his morning update at around 0700 or so, the information on VII Corps units was almost twelve hours old.

Ironically, the enemy information was more current, while Third Army (and CENTCOM) received information on VII Corps primarily from the fragmented voice reports sent by our CPs through the fragile communications 600 kilometers away. If the staff in Riyadh was relying solely on those reports to post their maps and brief the CINC, then the information gap was beginning to widen considerably.

Mind you, this was not unexpected. All experienced tactical field commanders know and deal with this phenomenon. Even at the edge of the so-called information age, such a lag is simply characteristic of fast-tempo operations and long-distance reporting.

It is only when senior commanders at higher HQ act on old information without validating it that they can get their decisions wrong. Most of them correct the possible misinformation by finding out for themselves — by visiting subordinate commanders or, at a minimum, calling the subordinate unit to verify facts and discuss the situation. I was later to learn that John Yeosock constantly attempted to ensure that the CINC's briefers had current information.

During the four days of the ground war, I never saw the reports that went to Riyadh. I trusted my chief of staff and the troops at the main CP to get it right and to do the best they could with the information they had. As it turned out, their reports were particularly sharp on the enemy situation and on our future plans, but the friendly situation was just as I've described. It is a fact of land warfare that you cannot have perfect knowledge of everything going on, so if you want to act, or think you need to act, then the higher you are, the more imperative it becomes to validate the information if your actions will affect the tactical battle.

The main problem that came out of all this was Riyadh's sense of our movement rate. On the one hand, there seemed to be a perception down there that all the Iraqi forces had been defeated virtually from the get-go (including the RGFC) and that all that was left was to pursue the defeated enemy and mop up (that nothing much was left for the Army and Marines to do but garrison the ruins).

Well, the RGFC was still very much a fighting force, though greatly weakened. And we were not taking our own sweet time in getting ourselves to them — especially considering the lousy weather and the maneuver skills needed to put together a three-division fist. This wasn't some kind of a free-for-all charge, with tanks instead of horses and raised sabers. It was a focused maneuver involving several thousand fighting vehicles to concentrate combat power in a rolling attack against an enemy defending with tanks, BMPs, and artillery.

By this time, I was getting sensitive to movement rates, but unless I got specific orders to the contrary from either Yeosock or Schwarzkopf, I was determined to do what I thought looked right to accomplish my mission at least cost to our troops. Suggestions and innuendoes were not what I needed. Commanders with units in combat and taking casualties get very focused. They are not sensitive to casual comments or sideline suggestions, and it is not a time for subtle mind-reading or communication games. You use very direct language and remove as much ambiguity as possible. "Here's what I want you to do. I want you here by such and such a time. Do you understand?" In my own experience, the more tired commanders get, and the more engaged they are in battles, with successes and setbacks and casualties, the more you have to use precise language, commander to commander. So give me a change in orders, I thought, or stay out of the way. Don't second-guess us at 600 kilometers from the fight.

My other focus was air. So far, we had had plenty of close air support… as much as we wanted, and we got as much as we wanted for the rest of the war. When CAS was able to fly during the previous two days, we had used 98 CAS sorties—38 by 2nd ACR, 44 by 1st INF, and 16 by 1st UK.

We did have two problems with CAS, however: First, the aircraft normally flew at 10,000 feet (for good reason; twice they came below that in the 1st AD sector and they had two aircraft shot down). Because they had to fly so high, though, the low weather ceilings became a problem. Second, because of the sand stirred up in the battles, the irregular nature of what even loosely could be called front lines, and the need to prevent fratricide, when CAS attacked targets in the immediate battle, everything else we were doing had to stop. Since ground commanders, for obvious reasons, found that situation unsatisfactory, they soon pushed CAS and their own organic Army aviation well forward of their ground elements, thereby creating a lethal zone in front of our maneuver units about twenty to forty kilometers deep.

Aside from these relatively minor issues, though, the close air support was there for us. It not only destroyed enemy targets and produced a shock effect on the enemy (who would not have been able to see them at 10,000 feet even if there had been no clouds), it also gave a lift to our troops when they saw their comrades in blue working with them as a team. Before the ground attack on the twenty-fourth, the Iraqis particularly feared the A-10; it never seemed to go away, they told us after the war. "I know you are not into it yet," an A-10 pilot told me before the ground war, "but when you are, we'll be there for you." It was the same kind of air-ground team loyalty I had seen in Vietnam. It's powerful.

That day, we were scheduled to get 146 CAS sorties and 86 AI sorties flown in support of the corps. I decided to allocate the CAS to the three attacking U.S. units—40 percent to 1st AD, and 30 percent each to 3rd AD and 2nd ACR. Since 1st UK also needed CAS, we allocated some for them as well and made appropriate adjustments.

Even though close air support was never a problem, coordination with CENTAF of the deep attack beyond CAS did continue to bother me. Now that we were in our attack maneuver to destroy the RGFC, I wanted to use air to help me isolate the battlefield, to build a wall of fire that would keep the RGFC from organizing a withdrawal. As we turned east, I wanted a death zone in front of the VII Corps that extended from the forward tanks in our sector all the way to the Persian Gulf, and I wanted to synchronize the sorties with our own attacks.

But CENTAF still controlled the sorties beyond the FSCL, and as a consequence, I had very little influence on the choice of targets in my sector, and the same was true for Gary Luck and John Yeosock. Since the theater commander made the rules, I had to assume the theater commander would take care of isolating the RGFC.[38]

These differences never did get resolved. The result was that I largely ignored the area that CENTAF said they would handle. Even without CAS, there were still the better part of more than 1,000 sorties a day, and CENTAF could do whatever they wanted to with them. So, after the war, when in some accounts the escape of the RGFC was laid at my feet, I had to wonder what CENTAF and the theater commander had been doing with all those sorties and with the other assets at their disposal to isolate the battlefield.

Meanwhile, since the most likely escape routes for Iraqi forces to get out of Kuwaiti theater of operations — north from Basra and north over the crossings of the Euphrates — were now in XVIII Corps's, Third Army's, and CENTCOM's area and out of mine, the focus of my attention had turned due east, toward the Gulf and the RGFC and the other forces forming a defense in depth.

Of course, now that XVIII Corps had the sector to our north, I was very curious about what they would do deep up there, and how that might affect the RGFC units in our sector. I had no information about that, however. At this point in the battle, I was forward about 100 kilometers into Iraq, John Yeosock was 600 kilometers away in Riyadh, and Gary Luck was about 300 kilometers away in XVIII Corps's sector.

So, now that the RGFC was clearly in the Third Army zone (and not solely in the VII Corps zone), how was Third Army going to use the two corps and the deep air to destroy them? And what would CENTCOM do to influence the outcome?

My assumption was that XVIII Corps units would swing east with us that day, and that together we would attack to destroy the RGFC divisions and their subordinate units. I also assumed that the theater commander would isolate the battlefield with air. But these were only assumptions, and besides, at this point I had my hands full commanding VII Corps, without trying to do John Yeosock's or the CINC's job as well.

I turned my attention to our combat strength.

To this point in the fight, I was aware of two soldiers KIA and twenty-three soldiers WIA,[39] and fifty-six soldiers classified as DNBI (disease non-battle injury). Today I knew there would be more. The pace of battle was about to pick up sharply as 2nd ACR and the divisions slammed into the Republican Guard and other units. Today we would see some heavy fighting both close and deep; it would go on into the night and continue tomorrow. We had the corps ready to fight those battles and to accomplish the mission at least cost. But there would be a cost. There always is.

We'd already had some fratricide from our own munitions — duds[40] from MLRS and Air Force cluster bomblets. It was another difference between attacking and defending. When you are in the defense, it's rare that you would move through an area you have just plastered with air and artillery, so unexploded munitions are usually not a problem. For attackers, it's a different story. Unexploded munitions form de facto antipersonnel minefields through which you must pass, and in fact, the situation in Desert Storm was much worse than most of us had expected. We were surprised at the density of our own stuff on the battlefield. It was a real enemy.

In Vietnam, if we had been about to attack through an area, we would not have put in air strikes with cluster bombs; we didn't want the duds to wound our troops. There, though, our artillery did not have DPICM bomblets, nor did we need the volume of artillery fire that we needed here, and here, as well, we had no control over the types of munitions used by the air. However, we did have control over our own artillery, and despite the risk to our own troops, mission requirements saw us fire lots of DPICM and MLRS bomblets.

Turning to logistics: Our posture there was good. The availability rate for the major end items — that is, tanks, Bradleys, British equipment, and the like — continued to be well into the 90 percentile range, and supplies — including fuel and ammo — also were doing well.

By this time Log Base Nelligen was beginning to be established about sixty kilometers inside Iraq. By this afternoon, it would have more than 1.25 million gallons of fuel, ready for issue to our attacking force. Prior to Nelligen, COSCOM (Corps Support Command) had established PTP[41] Buckeye, just south of the breach, with more than 1.2 million gallons of diesel, to refill the fuel vehicles of the 1st INF, 1st UK, and 2nd ACR (in Desert Storm, our divisions used up to 800,000 gallons or more daily). Both Buckeye and Nelligen were operated in part by troops from the U.S. Army Reserve called up for Desert Storm, and both had been set up on the initiative of Brigadier General Bob McFarlin and his COSCOM commanders as a result of my "no pauses" intent. They proved to be lifesavers in maintaining tempo — and the troops driving the fuel vehicles through the trackless desert in long convoys past sometimes bypassed Iraqi units were real heroes.

As the battle continued, I remained much more sensitive to fuel than to other classes of supply, including ammunition; none of the others ever seemed to be a problem. But as we turned east and got farther away from Log Base Nelligen, we knew that this would be a critical day for fuel.

My orders that morning were simple:

1. Continue to execute FRAGPLAN 7, with 1st INF in place of 1st CAV.

2. Focus the deep air beyond the FSCL that we could influence on the Iraqi 12th AD and Tawalkana Division.

3. Get the corps 11th Aviation Brigade into the fight that night to execute their CONPLAN Saddle about eighty kilometers deep, near what we had named Objective Minden. (Saddle was their contingency plan to support execution of FRAGPLAN 7, while Minden was an area in front of the 1st INF direction of attack where we anticipated the Iraqis would set another line of defense.)

At about 0700, Butch Funk came into the TAC for a chat. I was always glad to see Butch. He rested easy in the saddle and was always upbeat and forward-looking. (Butch was from Montana, and had a Ph.D.; in Vietnam he'd been an aviator, and had later commanded at all levels of armor; he'd also commanded the NTC, and been the III Corps chief of staff.)

His news for me was good. He was moving out with two brigades forward and one in reserve, he said, which were fully coordinated with the 2nd ACR, and would pass around to the north of Don Holder's northern squadron, rather than making a passage of lines. I liked that. It was a fine piece of initiative on the part of both units, and would mean a much swifter attack into the Tawalkana.

Next he had a request for more room to maneuver his division, which, unfortunately, was something that I didn't have to give him. I could do that only if I attacked with two divisions, instead of three, and kept both the 2nd ACR and the 1st INF in reserve, and I did not want to do that. Two divisions might have served for twenty-four hours, but I figured we needed to sustain our attack for at least forty-eight, and maybe longer.

"I can't give you any more room, Butch," I told him. "I need you to pass around the 2nd ACR and take up the fight with the RGFC. Press the fight. We're going to crank up the tempo."

Though he understood, he had to be disappointed that his division was in such a straitjacket. Nonetheless, he said "WILCO," and left to execute.

After Butch left, I gave some additional thought to our corps's restricted maneuver space. In order to get the focused combat power we needed and to sustain it at a peak, I had given the divisions a front about thirty to forty kilometers wide. They didn't have much room to maneuver laterally, but lots of depth. Though our VII Corps sector was about as wide as my covering force sector in front of V Corps had been in the Fulda Gap in Germany from 1982 to 1984, our VII Corps sector now had four divisions and an ACR with about 130,000 troops, while the Blackhorse had only had about 10,000 troops. In the relatively flat desert, it was a risk to focus that many troops and that many vehicles, with that kind of combat power, on one corps objective. We all knew that a wrong orientation of a gun tube — or of a unit with many tank gun tubes — meant rounds crossing boundaries, and fratricide. After they're fired, tank rounds cannot be recalled. Minimizing the risk, while maintaining the tempo of the attack, meant keeping my finger tightly on the pulse of the maneuvers. It also meant that in the overall corps rolling attack, some units would be stopped while others were moving. We would have to rely on the boundaries on our maps, GPS, and LORAN to keep our units from running into one another.

Where we did have additional room was in depth. That is why the problems of coordinating our deep attacks with CENTAF were so frustrating. Given control of all the air attacks in our sector from Smash to the Gulf, we could have created a 150-kilometer-deep death zone.

At 0800, I called John Yeosock to give him a report on the progress of our maneuver, and to tell him that I expected the corps to be in contact with the Tawalkana that morning and that I would pass the 1st INF through the 2nd ACR to continue the attack later that day.

After I'd delivered the basic facts, I continued to voice my frustration at the apparent lack of a common picture of the battlefield between Riyadh and the field.

He himself understood what we were trying to do, John explained. As far as he was concerned, we were right where he expected us to be, and in the right posture. However, the CINC had gotten heated up again that morning about the pace of our attack.

When I heard that, my frustration leapt into high gear. I was genuinely frustrated about the command mood swings in Riyadh, and I once again wondered what the hell they knew about what was happening. And the question again entered my mind: What were they doing there about isolating the battlefield? But I did not talk to John about that.

Then, to top it off, John wanted me to order the British to attack south, in order to clear the Wadi al Batin area from the Saudi border north into Kuwait.

I didn't like that idea at all, and I said so strongly. We had come out west so that we could avoid all the mines and obstacles the Iraqis had put up the Wadi. Why in the hell would we go in there now? When John insisted, I asked if I could give the order but not execute it, and then look again later that night, and he okayed that. (After the war I discovered that he was thinking that a British attack south would open a lane for 1st CAV to attack north past the British. That way 1st CAV could still get into the fight in time. It would also ease the logistics flow north in case the war went on around Basra for some time. It was a logical thought.)

Once we had worked our way through that issue, I asked if and when the 1st CAV would be released. Sometime today, John answered. And to us.

John's attitude had undergone a distinct change from the time of my late call to him the night before to today: The night before, we were doing OK. The CINC's intent was for us to conduct a deliberate attack to minimize casualties. Now there was abruptly a greater urgency, a change I was not to understand until long after the war.

In a student monograph at the U.S. Army's War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Colonel Mike Kendall unraveled some of the knots that had long puzzled me. During the war, Mike had been John's exec, and he kept excellent notes of John's discussions with General Schwarzkopf. The monograph bases its conclusions on these notes.

On 25 February, Kendall writes (as we have already seen): Yeosock "concluded that the CINC was satisfied with the operational pace" of VII Corps, and even "expressed concern with possible fratricide if the pace increased; the CINC stated that the intent was for deliberate operations with low casualties. In Yeosock's words, the CINC's intent was, 'fighting smart, deliberately, with small casualties, developing the situation, and fixing by fires.' " Yeosock "concluded that the CINC expects 26 February to be a slow day because of weather," and Yeosock "passed this information to the corps commanders during late-night discussions." It was this attitude and guidance that Yeosock had passed to me during the night of the twenty-fifth. But at "0215 hours on 26 February, the CINC was awakened by Brigadier General Neal, his night operations officer, with a report that the Iraqis had ordered their units out of Kuwait City. The CINC talked to CJCS [General Powell] and expressed concern that a cease-fire could occur within two days, resulting in the escape of the RGFC."

In "private conversations with me during the morning," Kendall continues, "General Yeosock discussed the atmosphere of the moment. He understood the CJCS's call to the CINC had caused the intent to change…" from, in Yeosock's (unforgettable) words, " 'slow and deliberate to magic units forward.' " This "reflected a CENTCOM lack of appreciation, in Yeosock's view, for the time/distance factors associated with the movement of a heavy corps against enemy forces whose intent was still ambiguous."

In other words, John Yeosock was aware that the CINC's perception had changed after his discussions with Powell. Because the Iraqis seemed to be abandoning Kuwait, which could result in an early cease-fire, Generals Schwarzkopf and Powell now believed that the Army — i.e., VII Corps — would have to speed up the attack against the RGFC, if there was any hope of destroying them.

However, I do not think Schwarzkopf recognized that it was Third Army, not VII Corps alone, attacking the RGFC. CENTCOM had the means and, it seemed to me, the responsibility to seal off the theater and bring land, sea, and air forces together to end it right. That was the time to set it in motion.

And yet, because Yeosock was aware that there was no way to make the corps go faster, and because he was aware that we had a defending enemy in front of us and XVIII Corps with a defense plan, he simply told me to keep pressing the attack.

And that is in fact the only intent I got from John that morning. There was nothing about the CINC's or Colin Powell's concerns. "Press the attack," John told me.[42]

It was like telling me to do something we were already doing. We were already committed east. We were already attacking. I soon forgot the discussion.

We had maneuvered the corps into a posture that would allow us to sustain the intensity of our attack for two to three days, as necessary. That was what we were out here to do… or at least, so I thought. CENTCOM could orchestrate the air deep to isolate the RGFC with the Third Army attack on 26 to 28 February. It would also help if Third Army could rapidly turn XVIII Corps east to attack to our north, so there would be a two-corps coordinated attack.

BEFORE he left for the main TAC, I said to John Landry, "John, make sure Third Army knows what the hell we are doing out here. Call them yourself. I talk to Yeosock all the time and tell him, but I'm not sure what picture they have."

He assured me he would. John was as good a tactician as I knew and had a great feel for what was going on. If anyone could get our ratings up in Riyadh, he could. And he did make sure that reports of our unit combat actions during the rest of the war were as accurate as they knew them at the Main CP.

WEATHER AND AIR

On 26 February, the rotten weather of the night before did not let up. Most of the day, we had intermittent heavy rain, blowing sand, and low cloud cover — with lucky breaks when we could fly helos and CAS. The weather was local and spotty. Some places would be relatively clear and others would have rain and blowing sand. This was our worst weather day.

It was a real tribute to both Army aviators and USAF CAS pilots that they were able to give us so many air attacks. By unit, 2nd ACR had 48, 1st AD 32, 3rd AD 26, and 1st UK 22, for a total of 128. And more were available if we'd wanted them. CENTAF had originated a system they called "push CAS," whereby they would push sorties of CAS into our area without request. We could then employ them or send them to someone else.

It worked well — just as CAS had worked well for us in the Blackhorse in Vietnam. CAS pilots went way beyond their duty in order to give us their best. Pilots even ignored the 10,000-foot altitude limit, which put them at considerable risk. Our own Apaches were no less selfless — flying day and night in weather that would have grounded us in Germany in peacetime, and with little regard to rest.

0730 EN ROUTE TO 1ST AD

"JAYHAWK 6, this is JAYHAWK 3 OSCAR." I was in my Blackhawk, and this was my TAC FWD calling.

"This is JAYHAWK 6."

"Dragoon reports contact with RGFC, Tawalkana Division." Dragoon was the 2nd ACR.

"Roger, location?"

"PT 528933." That was about the 50 Easting, or right on Phase Line Smash.

"Have them continue to attack."

"WILCO."

I found out later that, at 0713, 3rd Squadron had killed a T-72 at 52 Easting. The regiment read this as first contact with the Tawalkana. Then, at 0754, a T-72 company was sighted at grid line 5299. And the regimental log records, "At 0847 T'kana Div screen at 52 Easting. 2/2 reports all units in contact. 3d sqdn had incoming arty fire. At 0915 3d sqdn reported visibility dropped to less than 1,000 meters. At 0918 3 AD passing to north of 2nd ACR."

That was a big report. It confirmed what I had been expecting. We had them fixed.

What surprised me a bit was the location given; it was about ten kilometers farther west than I had thought. No matter. We were in the RGFC security zone, maybe deeper, and the regiment was doing exactly what a cavalry regiment in front of an attacking corps should be doing in an offensive covering force mission.

Now to keep them attacking while bringing the corps fist together to smash the RGFC. We had been maneuvering the corps for the past day and a half to put ourselves in this position. Now we had them fixed and were going to attack and hit them hard and keep hitting them until they were finished.

0800 1ST AD FIELD LOCATION

As I approached 1st AD, I was thinking that I needed to make clear what I wanted done today and my continued intentions. In light of this 2nd ACR report confirming the location of the Tawalkana, I wanted to be sure that the 1st AD and all my commanders understood my intent: no pauses in front of the RGFC. It was still possible there might be misunderstandings on that score, despite my repeated and forceful orders. I wanted nothing but hard forward momentum into the enemy. It also occurred to me that once 1st AD got to al-Busayyah, they might conclude they'd have time to stop, read the RGFC, get an attack order out, and even change map sheets, while the rest of the corps closed on Phase Line Smash.

So I needed to be crystal clear to Ron.

The battle tempo of VII Corps was my responsibility alone. It made no difference if there were misunderstandings or internal stops because of tactics selected by subordinate commanders — I alone would be accountable, and that was the way it should be. So if I did not like what a unit was doing, then it was my job to tell the commander to do something else, or else to go see him, get an explanation, and then decide.

As Ron Griffith and I met, the fight for al-Busayyah was well under way. Ron was attempting to finish that fight and press forward to Collins, where I had ordered him to be later this morning.

First AD had attacked al-Busayyah with two brigades abreast. On the left was the 2nd Brigade, commanded by Colonel Monty Meigs, with four battalion task forces (three tank and one Bradley). On the right was the 1st Brigade, commanded by Colonel Jim Riley, with three battalion task forces (two Bradley and one tank). Riley's brigade passed to the east of Purple in the early morning and turned ninety degrees east, continuing to attack in the center of the 1st AD and north of 3rd Brigade. Most of the fighting inside al-Busayyah was done by Lieutenant Colonel Mike McGee's 6/6 INF, supported by a combat engineer vehicle that turned many of the buildings to rubble, and killed or buried the commando defenders who refused to surrender. Most of the action fell to the 2nd Brigade.

I greeted Ron with the news of the RGFC contact to his south.

The attack on Purple was going well, he reported. He would finish it with one brigade, and would be in the northern part of Collins with the other two brigades to continue the attack by late morning. That was a little later than I had wanted, but all right, since he'd have two brigades to continue the attack (the second brigade would rejoin the others after Purple was secured). It was not an easy maneuver, but Ron and the 1st AD would do it and form the northern part of our fist.

"Ron," I said, giving him essentially the same order I had given to Butch Funk earlier, "I want you to press the fight all day. Do not stop. Continue the attack all day and into tonight."

Ron was a strong commander and knew what he had to do. He would make it happen.

I returned to the TAC FWD, about thirty kilometers away.

1000 TAC FWD

By now the 3rd AD had moved out to execute its maneuver east around the 2nd ACR and attack the Tawalkana, and so the TAC FWD stood by itself — two lone M577s with their twenty-foot canvas extensions still out the back. A few HMMWVs were scattered nearby, as were several commo trucks for the long-haul comms hookup. The troops were tired. Many had been up all night trying to make the comms work, while at the same time performing the Herculean task of keeping track of both a rapidly developing enemy situation and VII Corps units, all of which were on the move or in combat. I don't know how they did it.

Our main TAC, with all the comms and G-3, still had not arrived, so the comms situation was not good. Good or not, there was not much I could do about it. We did have line-of-sight FM and two TACSAT radios, and a long-haul comm line into the main CP gave us a connection to Riyadh. As for my main TAC, I knew they could feel the situation wherever they were, and were making every effort to get forward out of the tangle of vehicles and get the TAC set to control the RGFC battles.

Even without the comms, I was confident that all the commanders knew my intent and would make it happen. We had been over this situation in war games and were in one another's heads. I trusted them.

At 1000, Tom Rhame showed up. I had told him to come forward and meet me at the TAC. I went over the friendly and enemy situations as I knew them at that point, then told him I wanted him in the fight as soon as possible, and I especially wanted to know when he would be ready to take the fight from the 2nd ACR. I figured that in another four hours or so, the regiment would be at the main positions of the Tawalkana. Based on what Don Holder and I had discussed the day before, I did not think that they would be able to go much farther.

After I took him through these points, Tom gave me a quick SITREP on his progress.

"Boss," he said, "we began movement at 0430, as soon as the British cleared, and we are now moving forward in the worst sandstorm I've ever seen. I had a hell of a time even finding you. Only GPS got me here. Worse, the sector to move in was so narrow that I had to put the division in a column of brigades. We'll be set on Phase Line Hartz before dark." Phase Line Hartz was about twenty kilometers west of Phase Line Smash.

That was much slower than I had expected, but it was real. I knew Tom wasn't making excuses. If he could have gone faster, he would have. To act on what you have, not on what you wish you had, is another acquired skill for commanders. Friction is everywhere. You have to deal with it. You can't wish it away.

"Roger," I replied. "Here's what I want you to do. Continue to move forward to Hartz as fast as you can. Then, from there, close on the rear of the 2nd ACR. Pass through the 2nd ACR, and continue the attack to seize Objective Norfolk. You are the southern division of our corps fist." In other words, I wanted him to attack through the Tawalkana and deep into the Iraqi stiffening defenses. Norfolk was on the other side of the Tawalkana.

"WILCO."

Tom left to make it happen. My orders had to be translated into division orders, and graphics had to be hand-drawn on paper maps (since the original FRAGPLAN 7 had 1st CAV listed on the overlays). And all this had to be done on the move.

Meanwhile, I stayed at the TAC FWD. Though the comms there were marginal, I wanted to be near them — our own situation was fluid at the moment and I felt that was the best place to be. I also had the comfort of knowing that in the space of the last three hours, I had talked face-to-face with all of my division commanders, except Rupert Smith, and was confident that they would do what I expected them to do. The weather continued to be bad, with blowing sandstorms that limited visibility to 500 meters, or in some places less.

A call came in from my main CP that an Air Force A-10 (a close-air-support aircraft) had fired on two British Warriors, killing nine British soldiers and wounding ten. Blue on blue — our worst nightmare. Because I was out of comms with Rupert Smith at that point, I thought about flying down to talk it over with him. But then I realized there was really nothing I could do.

Could the British absorb that terrible loss and continue to drive on? I asked myself. I knew Rupert and his troops by now. I knew they would continue despite the shock that temporarily stuns a unit when such a tragedy occurs. It is one of those moments in battle when commanders and soldiers have to reach inside for the steel they know is there, and then go on. It would not be easy for them. It never is. Battle results are final and last forever. They are frozen in time. Dealing with such moments is the reason why you spend a lifetime training, learning, gaining experience. But you never get used to it. Never.

Later I got a call from my main CP: at 0930, the 1st CAV had been released from CENTCOM reserve to VII Corps. This was H + 53.5 hours. A few days earlier, Cal Waller had estimated it would take twenty-four to thirty-six hours after H-Hour to get them released. John Yeosock wasn't so optimistic, but he did expect the 1st CAV release sometime that day.

After the war, I learned that the tactical judgments at CENTCOM in Riyadh held that, soon after 0400 on Sunday, 24 February, we were in a state of pursuit. That meant that they were convinced the enemy was defeated and on the run, and that our job was to race after them and catch them. If such was the case, I wonder why it took more than two days to release the theater reserve so that they could take part in the pursuit.

Because of John Yeosock's forecast the night before, I had been anticipating the 1st CAV release. I figured I would tell John Tilelli to back his division out of the Ruqi Pocket (he had two maneuver brigades at that point) and to go west to the breach, then move through it to Lee, a position we had designated eighty kilometers north of the breach and just west of where the 1st INF would pass through the 2nd ACR. Though it would be a move of about 150 kilometers, I estimated that John could be at Lee early the next day if he moved all night. The 1st CAV was well practiced at long unit moves — the best in the theater.

Just as Tom Rhame had done, John Tilelli used his initiative and called me right away — though how he got through to me with the fragile comms was a mystery. It also was a tribute to our signal troops, who were busting their butts trying to keep us in touch with the rest of the corps.

"JAYHAWK 6, PEGASUS 6." PEGASUS 6 was John's call sign. "We've been chopped to VII Corps."

"Roger," I answered, "welcome back to the team." Then I moved quickly to what I had in mind. "I want you to move your division as fast as you can to Area Lee. We are executing FRAGPLAN 7, and have just hit the RGFC. First INF will pass through 2nd ACR later today and attack east. Depending on how our attack goes today and tonight, I will commit you either around to the south of the 1st INF or around to the north of the 1st AD. Too soon to call."

"WILCO. We're on the move."

Even though he had still been under the command of CENTCOM, John had been thinking ahead and monitoring our situation. On their own initiative, he and his commanders had prepared for the two release possibilities: that they would either reinforce the Egyptians or go to us. John had had tentative plans and was ready to execute them, whichever way CENTCOM turned. And so they were soon on the move.

DEVELOPMENTS IN-SECTOR THAT MORNING

True to his earlier assurances, by late morning Ron Griffith had the 1st AD in the northern part of Collins and was attacking east. They had secured Purple and were on line with the 3rd AD to their south. The only disturbing note was that by now units of XVIII Corps were thirty to fifty kilometers behind the 1st AD, leaving Ron an open flank. To Ron's north in that sector were RGFC army-level artillery and three RGFC infantry divisions, reinforced with some armor. In other words, the open flank gave Ron other tactical situations to deal with until the XVIII Corps attack closed the gap. In my own mind, I began to question the feasibility of executing the Third Army two-corps attack plan.

Meanwhile, Butch Funk had maneuvered the 3rd AD into two brigades forward (the 2nd on the left and the 1st on the right), with his 3rd Brigade in reserve. By a little after 0900, he was passing north of the 2nd ACR. Once that was done, Butch turned the 3rd AD sixty degrees east into his FRAGPLAN 7 attack zone, no easy maneuver on the move, and he would soon be in contact with the middle of the Tawalkana's hastily drawn defense.

We now had a giant left hook forming, with 1st AD coming around on the outside, 3rd AD in the center, and 1st INF coming up on the right to take over from 2nd ACR, which was already moving east to initiate the attack. We had formed on the move the most powerful attacking armor force in the history of the U.S. Army, and maybe ever; the tank battle that followed was as big or bigger as any in history. We would hit the forming RGFC defense from south to north with a force the likes of which they had never imagined.

I was later to learn that on his own initiative, Don Holder had linked the 2nd ACR TAC with the 3rd AD TAC, and smoothly coordinated the passage of 3rd AD to 2nd ACR's north. (He also was in contact with the British, on his south, who were pressing their attack aggressively to the east.) Simultaneously he had brought his regiment on line, with three squadrons abreast to get maximum combat power forward. By now his sector was the same as a division's, about thirty kilometers wide. I also later learned that, in order to prevent fratricide, Zanini's 3rd Brigade of 1st AD and Colonel Bob Higgins's 2nd Brigade of 3rd AD had established physical contact and put units together throughout the attack.

All in all, it was an impressive display of teamwork. Much maneuvering of major forces and vehicles in a confined space in a short time. Much initiative at small-unit level. Everyone doing the little things to reduce the friction without being told. A combat team. I was proud of them.

2ND ACR LATE MORNING

Around noon, I flew over to 2nd ACR to see how much farther to push them into the RGFC and to learn if they had found the RGFC's southern flank. I was still thinking of passing 1st INF forward during the daylight, a much easier move than a night passage, and less risky for fratricide. But I also did not want to break the momentum of the attack and give the RGFC any more time to set their defense.

Command judgment time. After 1st INF's all-day move, should I then push them in a night forward passage of lines into the attack? Or should I continue the attack with the 2nd ACR and pass the 1st INF the next day early in the daylight?

In the back of my mind, I also was trying to figure what our next move should be, because if I wanted to continue the momentum, I needed to set it in motion soon. I needed to sustain the regimental attack until the last possible moment, and maybe even reinforce them temporarily. Perhaps another AH-64 battalion from corps? Hard to manage. I had the 11th Aviation Brigade focusing on a deep attack that night. Using them for this purpose would screw that up.

At 1130, while I had still been at the TAC FWD, I had gotten the following SITREP over the radio from Dragoon:

"Regiment along 52 Easting, encountering covering force of Tawalkana Division. Attached infantry and armor. Destroyed tank company by air. Contact with dug-in tanks. Possible cuts in flanks north-south." They knew they had located the southern flank of the Tawalkana when they stopped seeing T-72s and started seeing older equipment.

I asked them then if they needed more AH-64s.

"Request a battalion." The CAV never turned down combat power.

They were already employing a battalion of Apaches from the 1st AD. If they needed another to continue, they might soon be at the end of their attack. I had to go talk to Don.

At 1250, I arrived at the Dragoon TAC and got a quick SITREP from Don Holder and Steve Robinette.

The Iraqis were in defensive positions. There were numerous reports of dug-in tanks, battalion defensive positions, some artillery fire. You could feel the defense beginning to stiffen. They might not be as skillful as they could have been, because we had not given them time to set a defense, but they were not running away, not here, and not in 1st AD or 3rd AD sectors. This was a different enemy from the one we'd encountered in their frontline infantry divisions. Those divisions had put up some fight, but they'd soon cracked when hit by our firepower. These units fought back; they were not surrendering at the rate we had seen earlier.

Now to the question of where to make the passage with the 1st INF.

Tom Rhame had said he would be at Hartz, ready to pass at dark. Hartz was at about 40 Easting (named after the north-south 40 grid line that ran through the battle area), or a little more than ten kilometers west of 52 Easting, where the 2nd ACR now was engaged. Don, Steve, and I estimated that the 2nd ACR could go another ten kilometers before they would be ready for the 1st INF to begin passage, which would make passage at about 60 Easting. That meant the 1st INF would roll into an area about twenty kilometers to the rear, take care of coordination, then move forward and make the passage.

It was a judgment call. Don was reaching out to around 80 Easting with air, and he had a good feel for what was in front of him, and I could see in their faces that they still had a lot of fight left in them. But I had to decide where I thought the regiment would run out of combat power. Sixty Easting was my best judgment at the time. Don agreed.

After I left, I went back to the corps TAC for some quick discussions with Brigadier General Mike Hall about our continuing frustrations with air/ground coordination. Mike promised to see what he could do to help. And just then — finally — the main TAC arrived.

1325 VII CORPS TAC FWD

Stan and I immediately huddled so that I could fill him in on the situation and on the orders I had given to the commanders, and then we talked over the best way to deal with placing the main TAC. Because the battle was rapidly moving east, we decided not to set up the TAC here, but instead to move forward to a location closer to where we anticipated the battles would be that night.

Meanwhile, 1st INF's arrival estimates had been pushed back even further, but the 2nd ACR was still doing well; continuing the attack was no problem.

At 1509, according to the 2nd ACR battle log, I called Ron Griffith and ordered him to "move east, gain contact," a reinforcement of the early-morning orders I had given him and a signal to anyone monitoring the command net of my intent for an increased tempo.

At 1513, I got Don on the radio and amended my previous order to him to stop at the 60 Easting. "Recon forward. Gain contact," I told him. I now judged that 60 Easting was too soon, that they'd have to wait too long there for the 1st INF Division… Remember, this was art, not science. You can always change your mind as the situation changes, and especially if you have a unit with the agility and the aggressive young leaders of the 2nd ACR.

With that, it was time to return to the 2nd ACR — who by then had engaged in a major battle with the Tawalkana.

1600 2ND ACR

Though by then the weather was marginal for flying, the high winds and sandstorms, having picked up, I got back to the 2nd ACR after a quick twenty-minute helo flight. I was glad that we had been able to make it back. There was an air of electricity in their TAC. Radios were alive and the noise level was high.

The 2nd ACR TAC was feeling great.

Meanwhile, what was to be called the Battle of 73 Easting was just getting under way. Here is what led up to that battle.

Almost immediately after first light that morning, as 2nd ACR had been nearing the vicinity of 50 Easting, they'd had enemy contact, and the contact had continued all morning. But as they had continued to push their attack east, they'd come into contact with, and destroyed, increasingly stiff defenses until they'd reached 60 Easting. At that point, they found themselves in between the now-destroyed security zone and the main defense of the Tawalkana, which appeared to be set somewhere east of them.

At 1400, regimental S-2 had picked up a report of eighty enemy vehicles moving north along 64 Easting. That gave them some warning that a major enemy force was close, though the precise nature of the enemy force was not clear. And in fact, after I amended my order and they resumed their attack east of 60 Easting, they ran head-on into the main defense of the Tawalkana, which began around 69 Easting. Tanks and BMPs faced them directly.

Because they had had no advance warning, other than the 1400 intelligence report, the 3rd and 2nd Squadrons found themselves in a meeting engagement. Though we knew the approximate locations of major enemy units, the troops on the ground who had to engage in close combat were essentially blind until they actually ran into the enemy. This was not a surprising situation. It happens more than we'd like it to.

Three things helped the 2nd ACR troopers: the boldness of their small-unit leaders, the training of their soldiers, and the weather. They attacked in a sandstorm. The Iraqis never saw what hit them until it was too late.

The Iraqis were in what is called a reverse-slope defense, a tactic they had used successfully against Iran. Taking advantage of the normal 50- to 100-foot undulations in the rolling desert, they had positioned part of a unit on the leading edge of a rise in the desert floor, while the remainder of the unit was concealed on the other side of the rise, or on the reverse slope. Their intent was to lure unsuspecting attackers into believing that they had to contend with only the small unit on the forward slope, but when attackers came over the rise, they would be hit by volley fire from the rest of the Iraqi defenders on the other side. It had been a good tactic against the Iranians. It did not work against our troops.

Though there were few bunkers, as this had been a hastily drawn-up defense, most of their tanks and BMPs were in horseshoe-shaped sand revetments — sand pushed up to about turret level on three sides of the vehicle, with the rear left open, so that the vehicle could back out. Some of the revetments had been dug out, some not. The revetments helped to hide vehicles, but they did nothing to stop the long-rod penetrator of the M1A1 120-mm cannon from destroying the Iraqi tanks. (After the engagement we found many "notches" in the berms indicating where the penetrators had gone through to find their mark.) In other places, when they had time, the Iraqis would erect screens in front of their tanks to deflect HEAT projectiles. But they did not have time for that here. Likewise, though their artillery was in position behind the defense, they also did not have time to get very well coordinated. Behind the defenses by about fifteen kilometers were logistics vehicles.

In addition to the reverse-slope defense, the Iraqis had some other devices. In some places (though not much in this engagement), they placed fifty-five-gallon drums out in front that could be heated at night and used as target reference points for their infrared night-sight equipment. They sometimes also (but not in this engagement) put out burning rubber tires to decoy laser-guided bombs or heat-seeking target designators away from their real targets.

In other words, the Iraqis were doing the best they could. They were not totally immobile, either. At 73 Easting and elsewhere they tried to reposition to meet the attack better, or even to counterattack. Thus, 73 Easting was a running three- to four-hour fight.

On this day, the weather was particularly bad, with visibility in the hundreds of meters, if that. The Iraqis never thought anyone would attack them in that kind of weather.

Captain H. R. McMaster, Troop E commander, offers this account: "I was issuing final instructions to the troop when my tank crested another, almost imperceptible rise. As we came over the top, my gunner, Staff Sergeant Koch, yelled, 'Tanks direct front.' I then saw more of the enemy position that Magee and Lawrence had spotted. In an instant, I counted eight tanks in dug-in positions… on the back slope of the ridge… so that they could surprise us as we came over the rise and equalize their weapons' capability with ours. We, however, had surprised them… They were close. Koch hit the button on the laser range finder and the display showed 1,420 meters. I yelled, 'Fire, fire sabot.' The enemy tank's turret separated from its hull in a hail of sparks… All the troop's tanks were now in the fight. Eight more T-72s erupted into flames. Enemy tanks and BMPs… erupted in innumerable fireballs. The troop was cutting a five-kilometer-wide swath of destruction through the enemy's defense… In twenty-three minutes, Eagle Troop had reduced the enemy position to a spectacular array of burning vehicles."

After he looked at the battle area the next morning, H. R. wrote, "Our Bradleys and tanks destroyed over thirty enemy tanks, approximately twenty personnel carriers and other armored vehicles, and about thirty trucks. The artillery strike had destroyed another thirty-five enemy trucks, large stocks of fuel, ammunition, and other supplies, and several armored vehicles. We were faced with the gruesome sight of a battlefield covered with enemy dead. One of the enemy prisoners claimed to have commanded a Republican Guards mechanized infantry battalion of over nine hundred men, reinforced with thirty-six tanks. He said that forty of the prisoners were all who remained alive. Eagle Troop had taken no casualties."

Captain Joe Sartiano, Troop G commander, gives this report: "The ensuing move due east was based upon north-south grid lines. Ghost and Eagle moved abreast of each other. Eagle had contact at about the 70 Easting, and Ghost continued to move forward. Ghost encountered enemy vehicles dug in at the 73 Easting. After destroying the mass to our front, more enemy vehicles came into our zone, and the troop engaged them with assets available. The scout platoons went 'black' [ran out of ammo] on TOWs at 1800 hrs; each tank fired an average of fourteen rounds (14 x 9 tanks in troop = 126 tank rounds, each deadly accurate), the mortar section (two SP 4.2-inch mortars) fired 256. Early in the evening, due to the ammunition expenditure, Hawk Company (squadron's tank company) was to relieve Ghost Troop… Battle damage was unknown at the time due to the limited visibility during the day. The troop lost one soldier, Sergeant Nels A. Moller, when an enemy tank hit his Bradley with a main gun round… The troop closed in on its TAA at 0100 and stayed there until 1500. During this time, the troop held a memorial service there for Sergeant Moller."

And Captain Dan Miller, Troop I commander, gives this report: "Enemy tank turrets were hurled skyward as 120-mm sabot rounds ripped through T-55s and T-72s. The fireballs that followed hurled debris 100 feet into the air. Secondary explosions destroyed the vehicles beyond recognition… The annihilation of this Iraqi armor battalion continued when the troop found itself surrounded by burning hulls and exploding ammo bunkers… The report of advancing T-72s from the east told us the battle wasn't over. Seven T-72s had managed to crawl out of their reveted positions and attempt a counterattack. The enemy was advancing at about 2,500 meters to our front. The flash from their gun tubes confirmed they had a fix on us. The scouts were in no position to continue the advance on T-72s. The T-72s' 125-mm main guns splashed short and kicked up a wall of dirt. In seconds they would have us in range and a Bradley was not built for such a hit. Again, the tanks quickly bounced forward. At 2,100 meters, the inferior T-72 didn't stand a chance against the Abrams M1A1. The depleted uranium long-rod penetrators from the sabot round passed through the T-72s like a hot knife through butter. The TOW missiles also had no problem with the range on penetration, and the counterattack was squelched like a match in a cup of water… We lost one vehicle in the armor battle [I-14] but thankfully the crew… all survived. Three of the crew members returned the following day, and the other two were medevaced for burns."

I learned later the extent of the damage the 2nd ACR had inflicted on the Tawalkana. The Battle of 73 Easting, which went on the rest of the afternoon and on and off into the evening until about 2300, proved to be a watershed event for our VII Corps attack and, in the longer run, for the U.S. Army.

For the Army, it was a vindication in microcosm of all our emphasis on tough performance-oriented training; of our investments in combat maneuver centers at NTC and Hohenfels; our quality soldiers, NCOs, and leaders; our leader development; and our great leading-edge equipment. It had taken the U.S. Army almost twenty years to get to the results of 73 Easting. When Troop G commander, Captain Joe Sartiano, was later asked how his troop had been able to do so well their first time in combat, he answered that this hadn't been their first time; he and others in his troop had been in combat before — at the National Training Center.

Here was the ultimate battlefield payoff of performance-oriented training under realistic combat conditions against a world-class opposing force at the National Training Center and at other combat maneuver centers. Later, other actions by units in 1st INF, 1st AD, and 3rd AD would lead many to the same conclusions. "After the OPFOR," a soldier in 1st AD said, "the Medina ain't nothin'."

For VII Corps, the battle was critical because the 2nd ACR not only succeeded in collapsing the security zone of the developing Iraqi defense, but delivered a resounding defeat to the Tawalkana first echelon and kept the Iraqis off balance until we got the 1st INF into the fight. Moreover, as I noted earlier, the 2nd ACR had found a seam between the RGFC defense and its subordinate units. Though there was no physical break in the defense, the identification of a seam or boundary is important. Where two different units have to tie together is a vulnerable area in any defense, and one you always try to attack. This was especially the case where two units had been thrown together as quickly as the Iraqis had done.

While I was at the 2nd ACR TAC, I talked mainly to Lieutenant Colonel Steve Robinette. What I wanted most was to get a picture of the battles, of what they had learned about the Iraqis, of the passage forward of the 1st INF, and how to exploit that seam. My first instincts were to use the 2nd ACR by sending them toward Objective Denver. The 1st CAV was another possibility, since by that time they would be ready in Lee.

My most important thought just then, however, was that the 2nd ACR had found the security zone and collapsed it, and then had severely punished the first-echelon defense of the now formerly elite RGFC.

Some quick considerations led to a decision to pass the 1st INF somewhere between 65 and 75 Easting. I now left the specific location of that to the commanders of the 2nd ACR and the 1st INF to work out. I still wanted the passage to occur in daylight, but at this point that no longer looked possible. (It actually started at around 2200 that night, soon after the Battle of 73 Easting was winding down.)

At 1600, I left the 2nd ACR and flew over to the 3rd AD TAC CP, by now forward in their new zone.

1630 3RD AD TAC CP

At the 3rd AD TAC, I met briefly with both Butch Funk and Ron Griffith. Ron was there to personally coordinate boundaries and flank contact between the divisions. The normal rule of thumb in units is that contact responsibility is from left to right. Since Ron was on the left, he had come to 3rd AD.

Both commanders were concerned about boundary coordination and had gone to great lengths to see to it they were tied in on the flanks. Because they were about to enter a night attack posture, we all were increasingly concerned about fratricide.

Meanwhile, both divisions had done a superb job of making the sharp ninety-degree turn in the trackless desert with no landmarks and only GPS and LORAN to guide them. Complicating navigation was the fact that 1st AD used mainly LORAN while 3rd AD used mainly GPS.

At that point, Butch Funk was right at the beginning of what they would call the Battle of Phase Line Bullet.

Butch told me he had two brigades on line, Colonel Bob Higgins's 2nd in the north and the 1st of Colonel Bill Nash (of recent Bosnia command) in the south. Both brigades had units in contact. At around 69 Easting, their 2nd Brigade reported sixty to seventy T-72s in revetments and began a fight. At 1610, farther south, their CAV squadron (4/7 CAV) and 4-18 INF (1st Brigade) were in a battle from 69 to 73 Easting with T-62s and infantry in bunkers. At 1645, both brigades passed through Phase Line Tangerine. From there and on into the night, they had a series of running tank fights with Iraqi defending units in reverse-slope defenses with T-72s. It confirmed what I already knew. Along 70 to 80 Easting, we had hit a hastily defending RGFC division plus reinforcements. They were fighting back — just as they had fought back against 2nd ACR.

So Butch had a lot to tell me.

Ron Griffith also had a lot to report.

By now, after his ninety-degree turn, he had three brigades on line, with his aviation out front. He was anxious, though, to get his Apache battalion back from the 2nd ACR for his coming fights.

He'd get them back, I told him, after the passage of the 1st INF through the 2nd ACR.

There were several other things on his mind: First, he had left an infantry battalion in al-Busayyah to finish the action there (6/6 INF under command of Lieutenant Colonel Mike McGee). Second, because XVIII Corps units were a good sixty kilometers or so behind him, he now had the open flank. And finally, he told me about a possible fratricide between one of his engineer units and an element of the 3rd ACR that had crossed the boundary into our sector.

All combat elements of 1st AD were by then forty to sixty kilometers east of al-Busayyah. On a number of occasions, the 3rd ACR had been told over the radio by both Griffith and Brigadier General Jay Hendrix, his assistant division commander, that only friendly logistical/support elements were on or near the airfield near al-Busayyah. (At that time, they were highly concerned about seizing this airfield, because it was planned as the center of a log base to be established if combat actions were extended.) The blue-on-blue event resulted in the deaths of two soldiers, while two others were wounded.

That shook me up.

Apparently, Hendrix, with corps approval, had denied the 3rd ACR permission to cross the VII Corps/1st AD boundary. This refusal had been needless, since the battle for al-Busayyah had long been over, and 1st AD was well forward. But it had happened. Ron and I both exploded… and then we had to go on the move again.

1700 VII CORPS MAIN TAC

I flew the short distance to the TAC, which was now set up at our new location.

I still had to make the decision on the Big Red One. Should I pass them forward at night or wait until morning? Clearly, the 2nd ACR had not only collapsed the RGFC security zone, they were now attacking main RGFC defenses and had found a seam between the RGFC and another unit. If we were going to sustain the attack momentum the regiment had started, I needed the 1st INF's 348 M1A1s fresh into the fight to replace the 2nd ACR's 123 tanks, which had been fighting most of the day.

But a hastily coordinated night forward passage of lines leading right off the march into a night attack was a tough and highly risky operation. Though we had trained some forward passage in simulations during our BCTP scenarios with the 1st INF in March 1990, I knew that wasn't going to help us a great deal. I also had a certain amount of experience with passages of lines and reliefs in place as a squadron commander in the 3rd ACR, then as commander of the 11th ACR and of the 1st AD. Yet all that had been a rearward passage in the defense.

I weighed the pluses and minuses once again. The risk to our troops was that units could get misoriented in the dark and there could be fratricide. But waiting until morning also was a risk. The RGFC was right in front of us, and it was moving units into the defense. At the same time, continuing the attack with the 2nd ACR posed no less a fratricide risk as making the passage at night — and they had only one-third the combat power of the Big Red One. That meant that the 2nd ACR might run out of combat power in the middle of the RGFC defense. Worse, the Iraqis might be able to set a stronger defense with mines and better-coordinated artillery fires.

I weighed these considerations quickly, then made my decision. I needed the 1st INF combat power attacking the now-stunned defense before they could recover. The Big Red One had the combat power I needed to keep attacking and maybe break through to Highway 8. It was a risk, not a gamble. But it was a risk.

At 1700 hours, I called Tom Rhame and ordered him to pass through the 2nd ACR and attack to seize Norfolk. It was a heavy decision for me: I knew what I was asking the soldiers and leaders to do. Though I did not second-guess myself, I thought about it all night long as I listened to reports of our battles on the radio in the TAC close by.

G + 2… THE REST OF THE THEATER

For the first twenty-four hours after their launch on G-Day, XVIII Corps's powerful 24th MECH had relatively easy going, with virtually no enemy opposition, over hard desert highlands as they thrust north toward Highway 8 and the Euphrates. They had a very long way to go, however. It was roughly 300 kilometers from their line of departure to Highway 8. But then, about sixty kilometers south of the highway, as the terrain sloped down toward the river, the going got considerably rougher. After rains, much of the area turns into nearly impenetrable quagmires. There were rains aplenty.

And so it took the division the better part of the night of 25 February until midday of the twenty-sixth to negotiate "the great dismal bog," as they called it, and begin the final attacks to put an armored cork on the Euphrates River valley.

The division had a number of objectives on or near Highway 8. South and east of the town of an-Nasiriyah were two airfields: Tallil, near the town, and Jalibah, not quite halfway (about seventy-five kilometers) between an-Nasiriyah and Basra. After they got through the bog, the 24th MECH took aim at the two airfields and at the highway itself. Soon the Iraqis were checked and the highway was secure. (Iraqi command to the east seemed unaware of this fact, for later that evening, a convoy of several dozen trucks and tanks on HETs were motoring up the highway — a brigade of the Hammurabi Division, it later turned out, trying to escape to Baghdad. First Brigade soon let the convoy know that the XVIII Corps had slammed the most direct route from Basra to Baghdad in their face.)

By early evening of the twenty-sixth, 2nd Brigade was in position to attack Jalibah, and by early morning of the following day, 197th Brigade had fought another 300 Republican Guard commandos in the vicinity of Tallil Airfield and secured a position southeast of the field. The 24th Division spent the morning of the twenty-seventh attacking the airfield.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Gary Luck had been briefed on CONPLAN Ridgeway (Contingency Plan Ridgeway), XVIII Corps's accommodation to the developments to the east. He ordered XVIII Corps to attack east into the Republican Guards. The 24th MECH and the 3rd ACR (under the 24th's operational control) would be the main effort, attacking east along Highway 8 late on the twenty-seventh, while the 101st Airborne would attack into an objective (Thomas) ten kilometers north of Basra with Apache and Cobra helicopters.

XVIII Corps was now prepared to synchronize its operations with VII Corps. But they had to hurry. By late on the twenty-sixth, while XVIII Corps was completing its airfield attacks and mission to interdict Highway 8, VII Corps was at least fifty kilometers farther east than Gary Luck's easternmost unit, and the gap between the two corps was growing.

Over in Kuwait, on the night of 25–26 February, there began an episode that would later turn out to be a major reason why the war ended early.

Late on the evening of the twenty-fifth, the Kuwaiti resistance let the Saudis know that the Iraqi army in Kuwait City appeared to be forming convoys out of military and civilian vehicles. It looked, in other words, as though the Iraqis might be starting to move out. The Saudis communicated this news to CENTCOM, and it was confirmed by a J-STARS aircraft tracking ground movements out of Kuwait City. Something approaching 200 vehicles was tracked moving on the freeway connecting Kuwait City and Basra near the town of Al Jahrah, at the western end of the Bay of Kuwait.

Soon CENTAF had Navy and USAF F-15s attacking these vehicles (only a very few of which were tanks or BMPs) along the highway, on what is known as the Mutlah Ridge. And during the early-morning hours of 26 February, Air Force and Navy aircraft flew hundreds of sorties against what indeed proved to be the fleeing Iraqi army. The attacks were so successful, the Western media dubbed the highway near Al Jahrah "the Highway of Death." Close to 1,500 smashed and burned-out hulks clogged the road to Basra (though loss of life, it became apparent later, was not nearly so great as the press at first reported).

An article appeared in the 26 February Washington Post, entitled " 'Like Fish in a Barrel,' U.S. Pilots Say." Another appeared the same day, describing Coalition air attacks as "a combat frenzy." Such views half a world from the action were about to set in motion decisions that would determine whether or not Norman Schwarzkopf's imperative—"Destroy the Republican Guards!" — would in fact be achieved.

By the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, the 2nd Marine Division, spearheaded by the Army's Tiger Brigade, had captured Mutlaa Ridge and cut off the highway to Basra, while the 1st Marine Division had sealed off the Kuwait International Airport. JFC-E continued north along the coastal highway. Kuwait City was now encircled.