Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

by Tom Clancy

  Though I wanted to talk to Tom Rhame about Safwan, I first thanked him and his troops for their superb efforts during the war. I had given Tom the most varied combat missions and, in the night passage and attack, the toughest, and they had done what I'd asked with skill and courage. They felt good about it. I could see it in the faces, hear it in the voices of the officers, NCOs, and soldiers I saw and with whom I talked. It was a different unit from the one I had visited on the eve of battle. They were now victorious veterans of mobile armored desert warfare. They would never be the same, and they knew it.

  Tom had commanded the Big Red One with skill and courage. Like the rest of us, he was a combat veteran of Vietnam, a veteran of the Cold War, and had had extensive command and staff service in mounted units. I enjoyed being around Tom. He was quick off the mark, never backed away from a challenge, and was always upbeat. He and his division were tough mounted warriors. I had always known it, and now the Iraqis knew it as well.

  Tom and I huddled so that he could reconstruct for me the last twelve hours of his war. It was then that I learned that he had not received a specific order to seize Safwan. Then we discussed what we had to do now.

  "We have to go get the town and the airfield without getting into a fight," I told him. "Try to seize them without firing a shot, but your troops and commanders always have the right of self-defense."

  "WILCO, boss," he answered.

  That was not the only guidance Tom got about Safwan that day. He received a lot more--from me, all the way to Riyadh. The anxiety level was up in Riyadh. I guess nobody wanted to tell President Bush that our site for the talks was still in enemy hands. At the same time, I also guess no one wanted to conduct a full assault into Safwan, since that might cause casualties, would attract a lot of attention, and violate our "cessation of offensive operations." So the guidance I gave Tom was to secure the town without a fight. Bluff, threaten, do whatever he had to, but get it. I left the details to him.

  Later that day, Tom sent his second brigade, commanded by Colonel Tony Moreno, and the 1/4 Cavalry to get Safwan.

  In a superbly skilled use of persuasion supported by force, Tony Moreno quite simply told the Iraqi commander to get the hell out of the way or suffer the results. That threat was credible to the Iraqis. They had already seen what U.S. forces had done to their friends, and Tony had the tanks visible to show he meant business. By late afternoon, they were in Safwan and had the airfield . . . but not before the 1/4 Cav had had to convince an Iraqi RGFC colonel to get out of there, using the same "Moreno" tactics. Moreno's approach had essentially been the same one that President Bush had used to deal with Saddam Hussein in the first place. "Get out of Kuwait, or we are coming in there to throw you out." Saddam had not been convinced, so the Coalition had liberated Kuwait by force. When Tony Moreno used the same threat at Safwan, the Iraqis did not need more convincing. By 1600, they had Safwan, the airfield, and the road junction.

  MEANWHILE, though the mission had to come first, I still had a driving urgency (fueled by the aftermath of Vietnam) to visit the troops and leaders to thank them for all they had done to win this victory. I also wanted to visit the hospitals and especially to talk to as many amputees as I could. I started the process that day . . . as did all my commanders. There would be many visits and many ceremonies, which together would put some kind of closure on all that had happened.

  Here is one small example: On the way back to the TAC, we visited with Lieutenant Colonel Pat Ritter and his tankers of the 1/3 4 Armor and learned from them about the intensity of the 1st INF's fight to take Objective Norfolk on the night of 26 and 27 February.

  Pat told me of the tough night passage, the difficulty they had had just navigating, and the enormous discipline shown by the soldiers and leaders to clear fires so that they would not shoot each other. He and his company commanders and NCOs talked about close-in fighting and about the Iraqi infantry with RPGs. He related stories about short-range tank shots of less than 500 meters and about the enemy firing from the rear. He also told of one of his company commanders who had used the machine guns of his tank to kill Iraqi infantry trying to climb on Ritter's tank. As the troops told me about their battles, I felt the emotion and excitement in their voices. When they talked about what they themselves had done, it was in whispered tones, but when they talked about what others had done, their voices grew louder. It had been a tough night for those tankers. Before I left, I told Pat and his troops how proud I was of them.

  SINCE I had not yet had a chance to visit 3rd AD, that night I called Butch Funk. He was feeling good about the performance of Spearhead--as well he should have. They had been relentless and had left in their wake the better part of four divisions, including the Tawalkana. Butch had scheduled an AAR with his commanders on top of the captured underground HQ of the 10th Iraqi Armored Division, and I wanted to attend some of that. There was also to be a memorial service in his CAV squadron, and he asked if I would later award his CAV squadron commander the Silver Star. I told him I would be proud to do it.

  I also called Cal Waller to get a reading of the CINC on the Safwan issue and the flap over our pace of attack. Cal was always helpful with reading Schwarzkopf, and he was also candid and did not hold anything back.

  When I asked him about the uproar and accusations over the Safwan road intersection, Cal explained, as I had guessed, that the problem was that the CINC was embarrassed: Based on what he had been briefed, he had told the President we had the place for the talks. Then he was told we did not have it.

  When I asked Cal about the pace-of-attack problem, he told me that the CINC had been upset over that a couple of days before, but now he was pleased about the whole operation.

  All right, I thought to myself afterward, they both make sense now, then chalked both of them off to the spur-of-the-moment pressure of command. It even occurred to me that now maybe the CINC regretted he'd raised the Safwan incident at all.

  2400 1 March 1991

  As of midnight, our VII Corps SITREP to Third Army said this about Iraqi units:

  North of us, out of our sector, approximately five battalions remained in the Basra pocket, conducting screening and hasty defensive operations on the southern bank of the Euphrates River. These units were hastily formed battle groups composed of the Medina, Hammurabi, and Adnan Divisions. We also knew that approximately eighteen battalions of five different divisions had successfully withdrawn to the north bank of the Euphrates River and were probably attempting to consolidate before returning to the Baghdad area. We thought the threat to VII Corps in our sector consisted of scattered forces of no larger than company-sized elements who had either been trapped or bypassed, and who might not have gotten the cease-fire word.

  2 MARCH 1991

  That morning, I got a quick staff update on the enemy and on our own situation.

  Though the Iraqis were in disarray, they were rapidly moving units and equipment out of the theater. They were clearly a beaten army and fleeing as fast as they could. Our SITREP the previous night had gotten that accurately.

  Except for continuing problems with unexploded munitions, our own situation was good. In the past twenty-four hours, we had suffered our second soldier death due to our own unexploded munitions, and I therefore put out a message to the commanders to reinforce troop protection. Later, throughout all Third Army, we would adopt the saying "Not one more life."

  After the briefing, I gave Stan guidance on our occupation duties, and told him to have some alternatives worked out for me when I got back that night.

  Next I ordered the formation of a Task Force Demo (a demolition task force) to destroy abandoned and captured Iraqi equipment more rapidly than we'd been able to do up to that time. I also wanted to be briefed on their actions each day hereafter until we left Iraq.

  1st INF

  That day at 1200 was to be the cease-fire meeting at Safwan. We'd had our people there since late the afternoon before to set up the site. All the equipment had been coming in tru
cks from King Khalid Military City and theater stocks, but they'd gotten jammed up in the traffic mess created by the destruction just north of Kuwait City. The trucks could not get through. That meant they had to transfer equipment to CH-47 helos and fly it in. The site would be ready at noon, but it would be a primitive setup.

  At about 0830, I flew into Safwan and talked to Brigadier General Bill Carter, the senior officer there, and grilled him on all the details of the setup. Tom Rhame joined us as we talked. In the Army, when a commander essentially flyspecks every detail, they call it "getting into the weeds." That was what I was doing . . . and it was different from my usual practice. I usually probe around to determine if an operation has its act together. Once I'm satisfied, I leave the details to the unit that is doing it. On this one, I wanted to go over it all and see how I could help.

  As always, things were well organized. At the same time, they let me know there were too many bosses running around giving instructions. I could see that for myself. There were troops from 22nd SUPCOM (Lieutenant General Gus Pagonis's unit), VII Corps HQ, 1st INF, and probably Third Army. Since VII Corps had the mission, I knew I could fix the situation in a heartbeat, and told Carter he was in charge of getting the site ready; he was to take charge and make it happen. It didn't matter what other units were there--as far as I was concerned, they were all in VII Corps territory, and they now belonged to 1st INF, Tom Rhame, and Bill Carter.

  After we got the who's-in-charge-here issue straightened out, Bill Carter and the Big Red One took over, and without them--from Moreno taking the site in the first place to Bill organizing it--it would not have happened. But they didn't do it alone. They had a lot of help from Major Dan Nolan, the VII Corps SGS (the secretary of the general staff, the group that works for the corps chief, and that handles all correspondence, information distribution, and protocol), and his crew, plus the troops and equipment from Third Army and 22nd SUPCOM.

  They put up a sign that was visible to all those who entered the site: WELCOME TO IRAQ, COURTESY OF THE BIG RED ONE. That was unit pride working . . . yet it was also a historical fact. I liked that.

  While I was there, we got the word that the Iraqis couldn't make it to that day's meeting, so the meeting had been postponed until the next day. We were glad to get twenty-four more hours. The extra time gave the 1st INF more time to prepare the site, and it gave me a chance to continue to visit units.

  My first stop was Troop G in 2nd Squadron, 2d ACR, one of the three cavalry troops to make the Battle of 73 Easting so successful. Captain Joe Sartiano gathered the troopers around a tank, and they spoke in whispered tones about what they had done. It is not unusual for those who have seen real combat to talk little about it and almost never in loud locker-room voices or language. This is especially true for those units that have had members wounded or killed in action, as was the case with Troop G.

  I almost had to pry stories out of them. They told me about Sergeant Nels Moller, who had been killed in action, and about the heroism of Second Lieutenant Gary Franks and Staff Sergeant Larry Foltz, who when their own vehicle had become inoperative from enemy fire, had crawled through that fire to another vehicle so that they could continue to call artillery on the Iraqis in 73 Easting.

  I ended the session by telling them that their actions had found and fixed the RGFC for VII Corps, just as cavalry is supposed to do. Then we had finished the fight they had started with the units that had passed through them. They were now combat veterans and had earned the proud right to wear the 2nd ACR patch on their right shoulder, signifying combat service.

  It was when I was about to leave that Staff Sergeant Waylan Lundquist, platoon sergeant of the second (tank) platoon, said that line that I've never forgotten: "Hey, sir, you generals didn't do too bad this time, either."

  It was the best compliment a commander could hear. But I also noticed he said "this time"!

  My next stop was about thirty minutes south. With Major General Rupert Smith and the British, I found the same attitude as with the U.S. troops: quiet, but pleased and proud with what they had done. Rupert and I compared notes and he confirmed he had been a bit weary of mission changes when, on the twenty-sixth, he did not know if he was to go north to attack in front of the 1st INF, south to clear the zone to the 1st CAV, or due east to Highway 8. Rupert and I laughed about it, but it had not been all that funny then. We also shared a laugh about something else. As radio call signs, we Americans tended to use our unit nicknames to identify ourselves. I called myself JAYHAWK, Tom Rhame used DANGER, Butch Funk SPEARHEAD, and Ron Griffith IRON. That was strange to the British, and so Rupert had selected SUN RAY as his call sign.

  At each visit to the 1st (UK), they assembled a battalion and I was able to tell them thanks from their Yank commander for what they had done and explain how their actions had contributed to our overall success. Working with the British had been a highly successful combined operation: American and British troops together again in the desert, just as in World War II. I would forever see and know the UK differently since I had been privileged to command their soldiers in battle. I hoped the people in the UK would feel the same intense pride in their soldiers and what they had accomplished that we did.

  From the 1st (UK), I flew back into Saudi Arabia to visit the soldiers in one of our evacuation hospitals. Fifteen minutes south of the border, we arrived at the 312th Evacuation Hospital and landed on their medevac pad, waving off the medics who rushed out thinking we were bringing in casualties.

  We had five such hospitals in VII Corps, in addition to the five MASH and five combat-support hospitals. Each had different capabilities for surgical treatment, trauma, and bed space. Normally, you echelon the MASH forward with divisions, place the CSHs farther back, and keep the larger evac hospitals well in the rear. I wanted to visit our wounded and especially to talk to the amputees.

  I was angry to learn that they had no Purple Hearts to award at the hospital. Normally, Purple Hearts are awarded in the hospital, as soldiers are too quickly evacuated from their parent unit to receive them there. A Purple Heart for wounds in combat is a badge of honor for risking your life for your country. I wanted them awarded, and I wanted them now. We got that squared away with a few calls to the right people.

  Our wounded soldiers were getting world-class medical care. The staff of our hospitals there would have made any hospital in the U.S.A. proud. Many of the doctors were Vietnam veterans. Our oldest hospital commander had first served as a private soldier in the North Africa campaigns and then, after he had become a doctor, as a surgeon in Korea, Vietnam, and now here.

  The troops were hurting from their wounds and full of questions about their fellow soldiers and their unit. I talked to all the amputees in that hospital and tried to share my own experiences with them. I was immensely proud of these young soldiers and those I had visited earlier. They were not from another planet. They were American soldiers who had given it the best they had. All I wanted to do was say thanks, as I remembered my fellow amputees in the ward in Valley Forge so long ago.

  I flew in silence most of the hour and fifteen minutes back to the corps TAC 200 kilometers into Iraq.

  VII Corps TAC CP Iraq

  At about 1830, soon after I got back to the TAC, I got a call from John Yeosock.

  "Fred, the CINC wants you to escort him to the talks at Safwan tomorrow," he said.

  "Me? You sure about that?" That was a real shocker. The CINC wants me to escort him? I had to get this one straight.

  "I'm sure."

  "WILCO." I'd be there.

  3 MARCH 1991

  I was up before first light.

  This would be a big day.

  Our troops had reported they would be ready when General Schwarzkopf arrived, and I depended on that. After a quick update that told me the situation was otherwise quiet in our part of occupied Iraq, we left at 0715 for Kuwait City and the airport, which by now was back in limited use. The CINC would not arrive before 0930, and it was only a forty-five-min
ute ride, but I wanted to look around some and to give ourselves plenty of time. Since this was the CINC's first visit north of the Saudi border and to the battlefield, I also wanted to preview what I might show him on our thirty-minute flight from Kuwait City airport to Safwan.

  On the way to the airfield, we flew over the so-called Highway of Death, just north of Kuwait City. There was a lot of wreckage there, to be sure, but what impressed me first was not so much the volume of destruction as the great numbers of civilian vehicles in and around the military trucks--the Iraqis had been using them as transportation to haul out their aggressor's loot. I spotted very few combat vehicles. The next thing that struck me was the sheer visual impact of it all. If a target analyst had examined this scene, he would have seen it the way we just had, but if you read about it in a newspaper, you'd likely come to the conclusion that it had been like shooting fish in a barrel--an un-American way to fight a war; and so the sooner ended, the better. If I had known that this was the impression people were getting in Washington, I would have realized at the time that the war would not go on much longer. The impact was too powerful.