Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

by Tom Clancy

  "Roger, DANGER, well done. I saw the wreckage. I want you to press your attack east. Attack to Denver. I'll give details to Bill."

  "WILCO."

  That was it. The evidence of my senses had been confirmed by Bill Carter's quick summary and now by the judgment of the division commander forward. It was then that I decided (though I was already leaning that way--especially after seeing the destruction on the way out here) to use the 1st INF as our southern envelopment arm, and not the British. Using them would get our southern division where I wanted them more directly and faster, and I would also exploit the success of the Big Red One. The 1st INF was now, technically, in an exploitation-and-pursuit. It had been a long time since a U.S. Army unit had been in that tactical situation. We surely had not practiced that situation in the Cold War, and not much in our training. . . . Well, you must always be prepared for success on the battlefield, and to seize the opportunities opened by an action of one of your subordinate units. I had expected to be in this situation, and now we were ready to exploit it.

  Bill Carter had overheard my conversation with Tom, and moments later, he and I and his planners were clustered beside a flat 1:100 000 map off the end of the M577 ramp.

  The troops around me looked tired. They had been attacking now since 1500 on the twenty-fourth. They'd had some rest, but not much. The movement forward after the breach had begun at around 0430 on 26 February, and had gone on in blinding sandstorms. They had coordinated, then executed the complex night passage of lines, then fought their way through two Iraqi brigades past Norfolk, and were now heading east. A hell of a series of tactical moves and fights. I was never more proud of any unit than I was of the Big Red One that morning.

  But I've been around tired troops, and these troops were tired . . . though clearly not down. They were running on fumes now, but they wanted to finish it. I could imagine what the troops who had fought all night felt like.

  As I looked at the map, a piece of blue representing the Persian Gulf was just visible at the far eastern corner of the eastern map sheet. It caught my attention.

  "Attack east," I told them. "Go for the blue on the map. That is what is bringing the ships to take us home when this is over. Go for that. Here!" I said, banging on the map. Not too military, but I wanted them--as clearly tired as they were--to have something to seize on to propel them forward another twenty-four hours. As Greg Fontenot was to tell me later, my remark "Go for the blue on the map" got all the way to the battalion commanders, and maybe further.

  "Bill," I went on, "now, here is what I am planning for the corps to do." Then I quickly sketched out how the 1st CAV would attack around the 1st AD in the north later that day, while the 1st and 3rd ADs would be the pressure forces continuing to attack due east, and the 1st INF would attack east through Denver across Highway 8 toward the Gulf. At that time, I also planned to bring the 2nd ACR up to the inside of the 1st INF to an Objective Hawk (after the corps's JAYHAWK nickname) that I drew just west of Denver, in order to keep the 3rd AD and 1st INF from running into each other. The British would meanwhile continue due east to Highway 8, just north of Kuwait City.

  As soon as I finished my sketch, Bill told me that he had it and they would execute. I then asked him to send a planner along with me back to the corps TAC, where we would quickly finish the graphic control measures.

  Before I left the area, I walked over to talk to some of the aviators--scout and attack helo pilots--about what they had seen and done over the last hours. The aviation brigade was commanded by Colonel Jim Mowrey, a smart, aggressive aviator whom I had gotten to know as a war college student at Fort Leavenworth during 1986 and 1987. Jim was not there at the time.

  The aviators were clearly tired from flying all night. Again, you could see it in their eyes. They described for me their attack in front of the close fight, during which they had surprised Iraqi units and destroyed numbers of vehicles. The scene they described fit my own visualization. Many Iraqi soldiers, they continued, had soon been running about trying to escape (they had been easily seen on night vision as white or black figures, depending on the mode of the sight). They had chosen not to fire on them, but instead focused their cannon fire on the equipment. I was proud of them. They had never forgotten who they were and what they stood for. I shook their hands, told them well done, and gave them VII Corps coins. Their accounts were more confirmation of a breakthrough.

  From what I had seen and heard, combined with earlier intelligence reports, I knew that whatever RGFC remained in our sector were now in a small area north of 1st INF's attack axis and east of 3rd AD and 1st AD. How many, I was not sure.

  We now had work to do to get the order out and executed that I had just sketched. The normal time for a complete new corps order is seventy-two hours. Even a change to a basic order (called a FRAGO--short for fragment of an order) usually takes twenty-four hours, as our FRAGPLAN 7 had done. I had given a warning order for this double envelopment the day before. Now I ordered it to be executed later that day and the next.

  0715 VII CORPS TAC FWD

  We flew to our TAC FWD, close to the 3rd AD TAC, about a twenty-minute flight back over the smoking ruins of the better part of two Iraqi brigades. There I linked up with Lieutenant Colonel Dave McKiernan and his crew. They were beat. They had been up most of the night working, moving, keeping up with the battles in the 1st AD and 3rd AD, and keeping us at the TAC informed. By now the main TAC with Stan was displacing forward to this location, or close to it. I was reminded of the reasons why fitness is part of a professional soldier's creed. You have to have something in reserve in times like this.

  I needed Dave to understand what I wanted done and to begin making the orders overlays, while I went to lay out my intent face-to-face with the commanders. I sketched out the maneuver for him in the sand and on the map and told him to get to work on it while I went to see Griffith and Funk. I would return at around 1030, I told him, and I wanted an orders group meeting of Tilelli, Holder, and Creighton Abrams at the TAC. If they could get our planners forward from the main CP to help, that would be a bonus. Then I left to go see Butch Funk.

  I figured they would have the graphics posted on overlays of acetate ready to pass out by the time I got done with the face-to-face meetings. It would not be easy.

  While I was at the TAC, I talked to John Yeosock twice to describe our progress and what I had seen, to go over our double-envelopment scheme of maneuver, and to discuss more maneuver room up north, in order to fit the 1st CAV in without some complex maneuver with the 1st AD. "I'm proud of what the corps is doing," he told me, "and I'll see what I can do to help you."

  I have later learned that the day before (26 February), the Third Army G-2, John Stewart, and the G-3, Steve Arnold, had been on their way forward to link up with me to go over final plans for the RGFC destruction. They had gotten as far as King Khalid Military City, then John Yeosock had had to recall them to help him with a crisis with the CINC in Riyadh over our movement rate.

  I cannot help but think that the end of the war might have turned out differently if they had been able to continue forward and we could have finalized the VII Corps-XVIII Corps coordinated final attack. As a minimum, I'll bet Steve Arnold would have been able to get our northern boundary changed and notify XVIII Corps about it. That would have allowed us to blitz the 1st CAV forward at about 1100 on the twenty-seventh, when they closed into Horse behind the 1st AD, and to slam into the Hammurabi Division (which was by then retreating). That would have completed the three-for-three heavy division RGFC destruction. It never happened.

  0745 3RD AD TAC CP

  I linked up with Butch Funk well forward in the 3rd AD's attack zone. With Butch was his aide, plus Brigadier General Gene Blackwell, and his command sergeant major, Joe T. Hill. Blackwell was a long-legged, six-foot-four Clemson graduate from South Carolina, all soldier--a warrior with fighter instincts, who went for the kill. As warriors and soldiers, he and Butch were much alike, but their personalities were very differe
nt. Gene was quieter than Butch, and you needed to draw him out. Butch was always explaining and teaching what he wanted done. But they were both very direct when they wanted orders carried out. They were a good team.

  Joe T. Hill was a Georgian (with a clipped Georgia accent), a veteran tanker, and a Vietnam vet, who had commanded an M1A1 the four days of the ground war. If you ordered an archetypal CSM out of central casting--a combat-savvy, streetwise, troop-focused veteran tanker--you'd get Joe T. Hill. I had interviewed "Joe T" for the VII Corps CSM job after my CSM had abruptly left in late January, but he had declined. He was honored that I'd thought of him, he told me, but if it was all the same to me, he figured he could do the corps and the 3rd AD more good by staying in 3rd AD, considering they had been last into the theater. Unusual--but Joe T was a real soldier.

  I was always glad to see Butch Funk. Butch has a soldier's heart, and I just flat-out trusted him. He also always told me exactly what was on his mind without any hidden agendas, and much of the time, he and I communicated without words. Later, he himself said pretty much the same thing: "I could tell from your voice what you wanted," he told me, "and of course, the shorthand of our common background--and, I daresay, kindred spirits--really helped. I always felt comfortable being candid with you, even though I may not be right. That sort of confidence in one's boss, I have found, is very rare."

  He had every reason to feel good about the 3rd AD that morning. In the last twenty-four hours, he had gotten an order from me to turn right ninety degrees, pass around the 2nd ACR, and attack east, destroying the RGFC in his sector. He had coordinated with the 2nd ACR, made his own order, then disseminated it, maneuvered his 8,000-plus vehicle division into two brigades up and one back (from the division wedge they had been in), passed around the 2nd ACR, turned right, linked up the 42nd Artillery Brigade with their division artillery, and fought all day and all night. They were still fighting. He had maneuvered and fought his division about eighty kilometers in twenty-four hours, and had extended the fight a good thirty kilometers ahead of his tank forces with close air and his own attack helos. Early that morning, he had passed his third brigade through his second brigade to maintain the momentum of attack. The 3rd AD had driven the spearhead right through the best the Iraqis had. And they were still doing it.

  After I told Butch what I was trying to get done that day, he clearly understood what I was telling him, and he even thought of a few ways the 3rd AD might be able to help. (They looked at an option later that day that I had not considered. It proposed attacking from south to north in front of the 1st AD and behind and into the flank of the Hammurabi, just in case the 1st CAV maneuver did not work. This would have worked if we'd had time.)

  As a result, he so paced the tempo of his division attack that day that to the Iraqis they were a relentless, moving, thirty- to forty-kilometer-long-by-thirty-kilometer-wide armored death zone. He gave them no rest. He had them fixed and was now going to finish them. I added an attack helicopter battalion from the 11th Aviation Brigade to the 3rd AD to give them additional fresh combat power and to keep extending their zone deep.

  "Butch, give me a SITREP," I said after I explained my intent.

  We were leaning over the top of a HMMWV, and he was pointing to a portable map he had unfolded on the hood top. Butch showed me on the map where his units were, explained that he had decided to pass his third brigade through his second brigade, then described the fighting the night before. It had been a series of hasty attacks, he told me, but with stiffening resistance the farther east they went. As they had done elsewhere, the Iraqis had tried reverse-slope defenses, but ground and air reconnaissance and quick-reacting small-unit leaders had overcome this tactical adjustment. They also were running into elements of many divisions, confirming that this was a hasty defense. He even related that at places the 10th Iraqi Armored seemed to have abandoned their equipment and fled.

  By now, he went on, he thought 3rd AD had defeated the RGFC in their zone and were into other forces that had been positioned in depth, or were just trying to get out of the theater. But he was clear that 3rd AD was still conducting hasty attacks and were not in any pursuit. Not yet. But soon.

  Before I left, he and I shared a few lighter moments. It was a relaxed, yet intensely focused mood we all were in. It was good to loosen up with the welcome Diet Coke Butch handed me, and Joe T. Hill gave me some equipment he had gotten from an abandoned Iraqi bunker. There was an RGFC uniform shirt complete with red shoulder cord, a brand-new Iraqi helmet (which we all signed later and gave to Army Chief Carl Vuono), and a field phone that also looked brand new. And we had a good laugh as Joe T acted out for us (in his Georgia accent) the likely Iraqi conversations as the Spearhead Division slammed into their positions in the middle of the night. . . . It was soldier humor while the battles continued all around us, but also a deeper indicator: We knew by now that the outcome was not in doubt. It was just a matter of how much longer and at what cost.

  I left Butch and flew to meet Ron Griffith. Navigation to the 1st AD was always a challenge because of their LORAN, since the rest of the corps mainly used GPS. They weren't trying to be different. They used what we could get. We just did not have enough GPS. As we lifted off from 3rd AD TAC and Mark turned the Blackhawk to head north to find the 1st AD, we could clearly see Spearhead Bradleys and tanks firing at the Iraqis.

  0815 1ST AD TAC CP

  My positive feelings changed abruptly when I saw the 1st AD TAC in the middle of what appeared to be a stopped division. I was quick off the Blackhawk to find out what was going on.

  Ron probably could read my mind as he greeted me. "I know you want us to continue the attack," he said, "but I'm just about out of fuel. I figure we have about another two hours, then the division will come to a complete halt. What killed us was the 75th Arty Brigade showed up almost out of fuel, and we had to refuel them." Friction.

  "Shit," I said. "Damn it, we just have to keep moving, and I'll get you fuel from somewhere. Just keep attacking like you've been doing."

  Very quickly, I went over to the 1st AD comms and called the TAC. "Get hold of Gene Daniel," I told them, "and get some fuel to the 1st AD. Top priority over anything else." I also ordered the 3rd AD to send some fuel to the north to 1st AD.

  For a brief time, I was thinking that the worst sin for an armored corps would be to run out of fuel. We had made many logistics arrangements to prevent it, yet we were in danger of it anyway. Stopping because you are out of fuel is a fatal flaw, and to run out of fuel here, on top of the world's greatest supply of oil, was just too much.

  The 1st AD had come farther than any other unit in the corps, and out of all the divisions had the most vehicles. They and the corps transportation units had been busting their butts to get to this point. But they were using about 500,000 to 750,000 gallons of fuel a day; and that is a lot of fuel trucks, especially when each one carries 2,500 or 5,000 gallons, and the turnaround time from corps fuel sites was by now twenty-four hours or greater. As an order of magnitude comparison, in Normandy in late August 1944, when there were eighteen divisions in the U.S. Third and First Armies, their total daily fuel consumption had been 850,000 gallons. For eighteen divisions! Ron's 1st AD used almost that much by themselves! It was no small deal.

  I was not happy with this situation. It almost cost us. From that day forward, I would tell military and other audiences, "Forget logistics and you lose."

  Our choices were really two. One was to stop the division and pass the 1st CAV through to take up the fight, a maneuver that would probably take us the rest of the day and well into the night. The end result: no pressure on the Iraqis for twelve hours or so. The alternative was for Ron to keep attacking and take the risk that the tankers would catch up and he would be able to sustain the momentum. We did not discuss these options. I ordered Ron to keep moving. I was counting on my logisticians.

  Meanwhile (though I did not yet know this), the 3rd AD had learned even before I had of the 1st AD fuel situation; as a stop
gap measure--on their own initiative, in a superb feat of teamwork--they had sent twenty HEMMT fuelers, each with 2,500 gallons, north to their flank division. This turned out to be the shot in the fuel tanks that 1st AD needed. Later, more fuel caught up, mainly due to the great efforts of the 1st AD logisticians and their ADC for support, Brigadier General Jarrett Robertson, a cavalryman and ex-commander of the 3rd CAV. Jarrett was aware of the situation in 1st AD and had already moved out to keep the momentum going. Likewise, Colonel Chuck Mahan, commander of 7th ASG, the VII Corps logistics unit that was assigned responsibility to support 1st AD and VII Corps units in that part of the battlefield, had gotten a helicopter from Ron and was scouring the desert LOC from 1st AD back to Nelligen for fuel tankers.

  In other words, the solution to this mini-crisis had been under way before I got into it. The units and commanders knew my intent, felt a tight teamwork, and had gone ahead and worked the problem and were well on the way to solving it. However, by establishing priorities, I could focus greater awareness of the urgency of the situation at the VII Corps rear and get them into it faster. Delivery of the fuel was the result of "brute force" logistics and a lot of fast-moving, long columns of tankers through the desert. (I later awarded a Bronze Star to Captain Debra Clark of the Arizona National Guard, who had led one of the many such columns forward.)