Bacil Donovan Warren's Blog, page 2

Roma Invicta Background post #2

As a backdrop for some of the events in the second excerpt, here is a little bit of explanation of how the Roman military transmitted signals.

Fantasy Short Story—a new start

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Coming soon: Poetry Cogitations

Just a brief note to announce I will have an upcoming VLOG series, posting to YouTube starting probably toward the end of October: Poetry Cogitations.

This is going to be an ongoing series where I read a poem and discuss it, including some basic technical information (meter, rhyme, that sort of things) but also my own impressions and thoughts about the poem. To start, I will be reading and discussing the poetry of others but will also include some of my own at some point, as well as delving into poetry both from a technical perspective as well as poetry qua expression and art form.

When new videos go up, I will announce them here as well as other on my other media sites. I hope you will join me and together we can explore the fascinating and visceral connection to the human experience that is poetry.

Desert Storm 30th Anniversary posts TOC

For convenience, there is a link to the TOC page in the menu bar of my website, but for anyone using an RSS reader it may not show up. Here is the TOC page link, listing my 30th anniversary blog posts in chronological order:

Desert Storm 30th Anniversary Blog Posts Table of Contents

Finally Home.

Brave Rifles! Veterans! You have been baptized in fire and blood and come out steel!

3d Armored Cavalry Regiment Regimental Accolade. From an impromptu speech given by General Winfield Scott to members of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen as they rose to attention and rendered proper military honors to him despite their wounds and exhaustion, after the Battle of Contreras on 20 AUG 1847.

Our vehicles and heavy equipment were in the hands of the Transportation Corps. A detail consisting of a couple of soldiers and an NCO from each line unit in the squadron were loading all of the duffel bags, rucksacks, and most of the other personal gear for the squadron’s soldiers into the belly of a large civilian aircraft—a Civil Reserve Air Fleet craft very similar to the one that had flown us into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on 01 OCT 1990. Weary soldiers had made their way up the boarding stairs into the plane, taking seats and stowing personal weapons, headgear, protective masks, and whatever other small personal items they brought on board. Also on board the aircraft, documenting our trip home, was a TV crew from the Minneapolis area.

Almost everyone had been seated. Cavalry troop commanders, the tank company commander, and the howitzer battery commander met in the front with the squadron CO and sergeant major, awaiting word from their first sergeants that every soldier was accounted for and on board. Boarding stairs had been removed, doors closed. Seconds, minutes passed, undoubtedly as final preflight checks were completed before the aircraft was given the go-ahead to taxi toward the runway and takeoff. The pre-flight safety briefing commenced, although I don’t think many paid much attention to it. Engines livened up as the plane began rolling down the runway. The night obscured any outside terrain, and even the runway itself wasn’t really visible from my seat in the middle of the fuselage, but I could feel the building anticipation as the craft strained and lurched into the cool night air.

After five months and twenty-seven days away, we were finally heading home.

KSA to FRG

We spent the first few minutes exuberantly expressing our elation about that, but soon settled into a relaxed state, with some sleeping, some reading or playing card games, and others swapping stories with friends from other units in the squadron, people they’d not really seen face-to-face since the squadron broke Base Camp Bessey back in early January. The in-flight entertainment included movies and cartoons, and as I discuss in my book also included our first look at the “Voices That Care” video—a musical effort directed at supporting US troops in the Persian Gulf we were heretofore completely ignorant of.

At some point, however, virtually all of us slept at least a little while we cruised during the long flight, landing in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) at Rhein-Main Air Base quite late in the evening. The same air base at which we’d deplaned on our way to KSA now became our first taste of life “after the storm.” The same USO entertainment area was available, with the graffiti on the butcher-paper–lined walls far more elaborate and complete than it had been when we were last here. I called my parents to let them know we’d left Saudi, and many others in Tiger Squadron called their own family, friends, and loved ones as well. Impatiently, we waited while the plane was refueled and the flight crew swapped out.

FRG to NYC

The liftoff from Rhein-Main was not as interesting or eventful as that from King Khalid earlier, and virtually everyone (me included) went to sleep for the rest of the early morning hours. As the sun dawned over the horizon, a buzz filled the cabin: we were approaching the US, and everyone was terrifically excited. The Minneapolis TV crew that had boarded with us in Saudi and had been filming most of our flight got their cameras and microphones ready, anticipating a boisterous response from us as our plane’s captain came over the intercom, announcing that we were now officially in US air space.

What the TV crew caught was an unbridled eruption of joy and relief as more than 250 soldiers celebrated the lifting of a massive psychological burden carried for almost six months. We whooped and hollered, howled, barked, and made virtually every primal noise imaginable short of orgasmic moans. It was a release, but not that kind of a release.

After, we sat anxiously as we entered into the stack for landing, then were finally set loose upon the terminal. A scout NCO from NYC met his wife at the jetway, an embrace so fierce and grateful that I still clearly see it in my mind thirty years later. We circled the terminal for the two beers our squadron CO had authorized us to buy, and waited for the plane’s refueling and a new crew to take over for our final leg

NYC to Ft. Bliss

By the time we lifted off from NYC, we were all quite well and completely over being on a plane, and really just wanted to be home already. The weight had been lifted, but the pain of having carried it remained—we were all ready to let go of that pain, too. A growing restlessness rippled through the plane the closer we got to El Paso, and only after landing and finally being permitted to deplane would it subside. The pain didn’t go away—a burden such as that leaves permanent marks—but it did diminish.

We, the Brave Rifles, having been baptized in fire and blood and come out steel, were finally home.

At last, it’s time to head home

As we continued to man our final defensive positions with time seeming to stretch forever on, a couple of things finally caught up—most importantly, mail. In addition to resuming normal US Army feeding protocols (fresh food when possible, T-rations otherwise, MREs only when necessary), the rest of the non-combat supply chain was able to catch up with us. Many received piles of letters and even some packages, a few with items that were requested a month prior (and may have proven useful during our ground combat) but just hadn’t arrived yet.

Catching Up

For my part, I got a bunch of letters from various family and friends, and a care package of batteries and cookies from my parents. There were Valentine’s Day cards galore (yeah, it was a month behind!) and a couple of letters on cassette tape, replies to tapes sent in mid-January just after the first few days of Desert Storm.

Aside from mail, there was little of note going on, and as we’ve already discovered I just don’t remember a whole lot of the days between the end of combat operations and the last couple of days we were in theatre. I do remember that the weather was fickle—something often true in the spring—vacillating between an overcast wet and chilly with a cutting breeze, and almost warm under bright blue skies.

There were some unfortunate events that occurred during this time, however. Several soldiers from 2nd Squadron were accidentally killed (in separate incidents) when dud/unexploded munitions detonated, providing a stark reminder to everyone that even if combat was over, it was still dangerous just to be around the combat area. We could not let our guard down yet.

In addition, there was a lot of ammo, captured enemy equipment, and other items to destroy—something that occasionally included setting up ad-hoc firing ranges and letting crews go berserk firing weapons … a makeshift gunnery range “mad minute,” in a sense. We also brought back a few pieces that were still in museum-quality shape for the 3d Armored Cavalry Museum (including the 2S3 self-propelled artillery gun in the center of the image above), items that I believe are still on display with that museum today.

On 07 MAR, we received orders to move to REDCON-1 and then set off on a road march southbound to return to our original assembly areas, making our way to the area of the Tapline road in Saudi Arabia. By the 12th, all of the Brave Rifles were back in Saudi Arabia. Although we’d already gotten back to performing our regular maintenance and filling out our paperwork to document any issues we ran across, it was here and now that our cleaning and preparation began in earnest. There was no doubt we would be heading home soon, and the more work we could get done here the less work we’d have to do when we got back to Ft. Bliss. And so, our platoon sergeant got us all busy cleaning the snot out of everything we could, from small arms to the inside of the turrets and driver’s stations, and basically everything that was accessible without needing a crane or specialized assets.

Sayonara, Saudi

My last real memory in Saudi Arabia is being back in the area of the port at Al Jubayl, where we were packing up all of the crew-served equipment back into our tanks, securing all of the sponson boxes, and packing items into CONEX containers for the shipment back to Ft. Bliss. It was a bright, sunny day and roughly 65° F (18.3° C) with a slight breeze to keep things interesting. All around us were the fervent workings of US Army Transportation Corps soldiers marshaling our equipment, lining up tanks and Bradleys and other vehicles along with CONEX containers and other equipment, ready to be moved onto the waiting RO-RO transport ship SSCape Inscription, docked nearby.

Along with the equipment leaving port, however, was a singularly sobering sight, one that I wasn’t sure I actually remembered (but rather that I’d dreamt it, or imagined it) until another of my Brave Rifles brethren posted a picture of it on social media recently: pallets of body bags. Dozens of pallets, equating to thousands of body bags.

All still sealed.

I don’t believe that our leadership actually thought we would suffer the worst-case scenario, with a recalcitrant Iraqi Army able to inflict significant damage to coalition forces slogging northward, defending in depth with obstacles and artillery attritting our advancing forces with deadly effect, then counterattacking with Republican Guard forces and thereby able to bring the UN and the coalition to the bargaining table from a strong position—a position which would likely have seen those pallets of body bags having been broken open and sent back to Dover Air Force Base one at a time, bearing an American who had given their last full measure of devotion. But they did have a contingency for it. To my mind, that signals that they really did make a lot of exceptionally tough decisions—it wasn’t just luck, but a combination of thorough planning, excellent training, solid technology, and iron will that not only avoided such a grisly outcome, but turned in a masterful performance of warfare. A performance that continues to echo, rippling out over the last 30 years and impacting two generations of warfighters since.

I don’t recall whether we slept that night at the port, or whether we moved immediately to board the aircraft which would start our long flight back to the States. I do remember the flight home, however, which I will talk about in the next post.

Operation “Get Us The F@#* Home”

For the first roughly three days after the cease fire, I was still in combat mode (as were likely many, maybe all, of the other Brave Rifles troopers). There were still Iraqi forces out there, some nearby, and given how quickly and completely we had severed their command, control, and communication from Baghdad—and how utterly we had wrecked the units with which we came into contact—it seemed likely that there might be Iraqi units with no knowledge of the cease fire. At one point, on 02 MAR the 24th Infantry had taken fire from retreating Iraqi units and became decisively engaged. We did get alerted and moved to REDCON-1 when that happened, but we did not move or otherwise get involved and stayed in our final screen line position.

The next few days after, from say 05 to 15 MAR are just as much of a blur and missing memory as are many of the days before the start of Desert Storm, and the time after it (which I discussed in an earlier post). There was a lot of guard duty. There was track, engine, and other maintenance. We punched our gun tubes, finally—after ar Rumaylah airfield and the quarry, we punched them but we did it at least one more time on this screen line.

I do have one very specific memory, but not which day it occurred. It was early March, so still the tail end of winter with spring starting to raise up, and nighttime temps still running in the 50° F–55° F (10° C–12.8°C) range, not cold but still a bit chilly. On this particular evening, I had a shift as a roving guard, marching around and between the tanks—and it was starting to drizzle. Since we’d known about the coming storm, I’d already geared up with my rain jacket and rain boots, so the guard shift was a bit chilly, windy, and slightly wet but not bad. Fortunately—or, so it seemed at first—the storm didn’t start until after I’d completed my shift, been relieved by the oncoming guard, and gotten back into the tank.

Unfortunately, however, this was when I discovered that the work I’d put in to trying to make my loader’s hatch more water resistant had not worked. The seal on the loader’s hatch was not quite long enough, and there was a small gap where the two ends of the seal were supposed to meet … but did not. I had previously laid down a small bead of silicone caulk there, hoping that would keep most of the water out, but either it wasn’t enough, or (more likely) I didn’t know how to do it right, and it did not keep the water out.

At all.

So I spent yet another night not sleeping with very cold rain dripping on me all night long, sitting in my loader’s hatch (which is too small to really sleep in, in any case). It was reminiscent of the night spent immediately after returning from our new-tank-retrieval detail in Dammam (which I cover in my book), and although it was not nearly as cold it may have been more annoying. I didn’t get good sleep inside the tank anyway (I don’t know anyone who does, although some positions are more comfortable than others), but constantly being drip-drip-dripped on even with the rain jacket and hood pulled up to keep the wet off of my skin sucks with a vengeance.

The next few days, however, I do not recall with any memories. Which, again, is kind of sad and makes me a little annoyed. I know that at least part of it is owing to my ADHD and the working memory problems concomitant with that, but it is still exasperating.

I do have a few specific memories of the last day or two, the 16th & 17th, which I will cover in the next post. For now, just know that at this point thirty years ago, we were dutifully performing our tasks while simultaneously hoping we would soon be able to start heading back to Ft. Bliss, and starting Operation Get Us The F@#* Home.

Cease fire … oops, just kidding

Stand-to on the morning of the 28th was a vastly different experience from the most recent previous stand-to, on the morning of he 24th. For one, this time we didn’t deploy those God-forsaken camo nets—they work, but holy crap they are difficult to erect and take down, as they catch on absolutely everything. For two, it was much more efficient and focused. I distinctly remember moving very fluidly through my pre-operation PMCS (preventative maintenance checks and services), much more on muscle memory than I’d previously experienced. For three, because we were expecting to get additional orders any second now—or even be attacked by retreating Iraqi units—there was a sense of urgency and cold calculation that had never been present before. As I’ve said before, though, don’t get it twisted: I, we, did these things in the past with deliberate intent to do them correctly. The consequence of the last four days, however, cannot be overstated. Even small amounts of combat changes a soldier’s perspective.

On everything.

We assumed REDCON-1, and awaited further orders, which did not come immediately. As a result, we stood down to REDCON-2, and went about performing some maintenance we hadn’t been able to do yet: one tank per platoon (starting with someone else’s tank, not C-21 as I don’t remember doing this immediately) pulled their V-Packs and did a quick-and-dirty cleaning on them, while everyone else did things like checking track tension, cleaning small arms, and so forth. As with other things, this was a far more efficient and straightforward period of maintenance than I’d experienced before. Everything was much smoother, no wasted time or movement. It was a bit surreal to be honest.

We ate breakfast. We shaved. We wiped out our very stinky pits and crotches. We made coffee (!!!) and hot cocoa. It was about 50° F (10° C) at sunrise with a 20-ish km/h wind, still quite chilly and breezy, and there was a dull pewter overcast of mammatus clouds overhead (something that made hot coffee even tastier). It hadn’t rained on us yet, but it sure felt—and looked—like it wanted to.

Cease fire? Really?

With a full night’s sleep, a belly filled with Omelet with Ham, Potatoes Au Gratin, and hot java juice, and all of the delayed maintenance completed, all that was left to do was hold fast and wait. Waiting is usually the hardest part, but today it was a welcome respite.

Since stand-to, it’s been about two hours thirty minutes, so now roughly 07:30 hours. The radio has that distinctive click-ping of the radio transmitting through the encrypted SINCGARS channel, incoming from the troop command net.

Something something cease-fire something something zero eight hundred something something something. It was not what I expected to hear, and I doubt that anyone who was not already listening to the squadron command or higher radio nets expected it, either. What was transmitted was that at 0800 local time, there would be a cease-fire in place. From 07:45 to 08:00 there would be an artillery barrage preceding it, with artillery targets being fired upon until the cease-fire took effect. My brain just didn’t want to process it right, but word spread quickly throughout Cyclone troop. Additionally, we would go to REDCON-1-minus at 07:45, just in case things went south on us, and then at 08:00 would likely stand back down to REDCON-2. Rules of engagement also changed, going from “if it isn’t definitely friendly, shoot it” to “if it isn’t shooting at you, don’t shoot at it.”

Talk about surreal.

As was the order, however, we packed up and got our butts into REDCON-1-minus (ready to move immediately except no engines running). We heard the batteries of artillery going off, all friendly. The cacophony lasted fifteen minutes, and then it ceased.

A few fretful heartbeats thump-thump-thumped in my chest as I anxiously sat on tenterhooks, my left hand clenched on the grip of my loader’s M240 machine gun and my right hand on the edge of my hatch. No further orders came, no enemy response was noted or seemed forthcoming. I took a breath.

And then howled. As did several other scouts, tankers, mortarmen, medics, wrenches, and other assorted combat and combat support soldiers within earshot. It seemed as if maybe, perhaps, we’d all made it.

Just kidding.

That feeling of elation and survival was real, and also (again) quite sur-real. There was a lightness in my movements, almost giddy in nature. That lasted for about two and a half hours.

The radio did that click-ping thing again, and the troop CO ordered everyone to REDCON-1, with a FRAGO to follow. There was another of those pregnant, charged moments of silence, and then the FRAGO came out. A friendly Blackhawk helicopter, believed to be a MEDEVAC for a downed pilot nearby, had been shot down about 20 km to our east. The Regiment’s 1st and 2nd squadrons were ordered to execute a movement to contact toward the crash site, secure it, and then establish a screen line to the east of it to protect the recovery operation.

You remember that light, giddiness I mentioned? Gone.

We waited for the final order to move out, and off we went. After maybe a half hour or so, we started seeing evidence of the Iraqi defense in the area, with dug-in trenches and hasty fighting positions dotting and criss-crossing the desert floor. There were clear indications of combat damage, with scoring and blast damage evident on the ground, as well as occasional unexploded munitions. We passed several pits in the ground that had obviously been occupied at some point, and entrances to what looked like small bunker complexes. At each one, I trained my machine gun on whatever entrance I could see. At each one, not a soul emerged—every one of them appeared to be abandoned.

Ten kilometers, eleven kilometers, twelve, fifteen, twenty … and then, after E troop reported that they’d secured the crash site, there was excited chatter from our own Red (scout) platoon about a nearby airfield, which was decidedly not unoccupied. Reports from 2nd squadron came through: wire fence, tanks, PCs, and anti-aircraft weapons on the objective. Cyclone troop’s CO ordered the tanks forward, coming on-line within about 2,500 meters of the southern edge of the airfield. I could see the tower with my unaided eye, but pulled out the binocs to get a look at the rest of the situation.

Initially, E and F troop reported that the vehicles on the airfield might be abandoned, but then enemy troops were witnessed re-mounting them and all three of E, F, and G troops started taking fire. Cyclone troop responded, and with vigor. The LT gave the fire command, I armed the already-loaded gun, and SGT Planter loosed a HEAT round toward a PC—which hit the fence first, and prematurely detonated. While it was flying downrange at approximately 1,500 meters/second, I threw a second HEAT round into the breech and rearmed the main gun. This time, an Iraqi BMP exploded from our HEAT round, and after I’d reloaded the main gun again SGT Planter turned back to me and said “we got it!” with the cheesiest, shit-eating grin on his face. I replied in kind, and we threw each other a high-five over the top of the main gun breech.

At this point, the LT left SGT Planter and myself to fight the tank while he ran the platoon, so SGT Planter scanned and found target after target. I loaded, and popped my head up in between shots to scan and watch for impact with binoculars. When main gun targets became scarce, SGT Planter found troops in the open, and lit them up with the coax machine gun.

Several rounds later … couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes … and we got a CEASE FIRE order. Friendly troops were on the airfield collecting prisoners and we didn’t want to have a fratricide incident. Cyclone troop reformed south of the airfield, and continued a movement to contact east. Apparently, air assets had identified additional enemy forces to the east of the airfield, and we set off to investigate.

After a couple of kilometers, RED platoon reported contact with enemy PCs, and we sped up to help out. At least one of the RED platoon Bradleys had knocked out a BMP, which was smoking right in front of my tank maybe thirty meters. It had been occupied, and now was most certainly not, as I could smell that whatever enemy soldiers were in the PC were definitely KIA and burning with the on-fire vehicle.

As we paused, and the scouts consolidated their screen line position, our platoon sergeant came over the platoon net extremely excitedly reporting the presence of tanks. In the rush, the scouts had driven right past them, and we were sitting in a scorpion’s nest of enemy tanks, PCs, and other vehicles in hide positions (see the above image for reference). From ground level, they were easy to miss. Once I poked my head out of the loader’s hatch, I could see several enemy vehicles. A T-72 to the left side, three MT-LB PCs to the right rear, and a truck and a trailer immediately in front of us.

The trailer in particular caught my attention. After the LT reported to the CO that there were still enemy vehicles in our area and we needed the scouts to backtrack to help us clear it out, I kept seeing the door in the side of the trailer open and shut. Open, and shut. The wind? Is it the wind I see? Maybe. Maybe it’s the wind blowing it slightly open and then closed again. I did, however, train my machine gun on it, just in case—and then it opened fully and a man with a rifle came out of it. In my haste (and, to avoid my LT thinking I had lost my mind if it had been just the wind), I hadn’t said anything about the trailer door, so my machine gun burst into the door and the Iraqi that had come out of it scared the crap out of everybody. As I told the LT what I’d seen, he had SGT Planter open up on it with a coax burst, and then called a cease fire.

A few minutes later, the scouts had returned, and we cleared out the complex. We took a few POWs there, and several items of great intelligence value, all from a Republican Guard unit—likely the Al-Faw division—and after securing the site, took up screen line positions just east of the quarries where we found them. A LOGPAC (resupply) came through and topped off all of our tanks with fuel and ammo.

By about 1600, we were wrapped up with our FRAGO, and maintained our screen line. We went to REDCON-3, and tanks were pulled off the line one at a time to punch their main gun tubes (cleaning them out), clean out the engine’s V-packs (filters), and perform more detailed maintenance than had been possible up to this point.

Also, for the first time since we’d crossed the berm, we got a hot meal from the squadron kitchen … T-rations, but what can you do? … and mail.

From Valentine’s Day. Now if that doesn’t beat all …

Oh, and we took a few pictures. The topmost image is some of my tank platoon posing with one of the Iraqi tanker helmets from the tanks we’d captured. Here’s a couple of me with the same helmet:

Which was how the afternoon of the 28th wrapped up. Food, mail, maintenance, guard duty.

Forever with the guard duty.

Contact and exhaustion

At not much after midnight on the morning of the 27th, I have my first really vivid memory since crossing the berm on the 24th. It’s as dark as the inside of an abandoned mine shaft at night, with some low level clouds covering the stars, and fog limiting naked-eye visibility to a few hundred meters. We have pushed east several more kilometers, and have halted in place as an artillery barrage pounds the objective about 4 km east of our position—when I am head-up in the hatch, I can count about 12 seconds from flash (artillery hitting the ground and exploding) to bang (when the sound of the impact reverberates through my chest), so the impacts are about that far away.

There is no chatter really on the troop command net, so I switch up the auxiliary radio to the squadron net. That network is blistering with chatter, but none of it really reporting anything of interest to us (no contact reports, no casualty reports), so I reset everything back to normal. I’m so tired right now it’s not even funny. It’s almost to the point where I’m considering using toothpicks to hold my eyelids open, like an animated character on a Saturday morning cartoon show.

Time for another Tanker Shot. Even though the artillery should be spiking my epinephrine, and probably is, at this point my body is inured to the effects of it and has started telling my adrenal hormones to piss off. Taster’s Choice® MRE instant coffee packet, check. MRE sugar packet, check. MRE creamer packet, check. Water, check. Down the hatch.

It’s nasty. But it works … at least a while.

Creeping death?

We’ve been sitting idle now for about an hour. Nothing on the troop command net. Very little on the squadron command net, switching back and forth. Artillery stopped falling on the objective ahead, for maybe a half hour now. It’s agonizing. Why are we just sitting here? I realize that my Tanker Shot has worn off and it’s time for the big guns.

Before we left the US on 30 SEP 1990, I made sure to pack the final straw in any campaign against sleep deprivation, two 40-pack boxes of Vivarin® caffeine tablets. Two hundred milligrams of caffeine per tablet, and up until now still unopened. Tonight’s the night. I also know that this is the last straw—it will probably keep me awake for a few hours at least, but after maybe a second dose I’m going to be in big trouble without some sleep. I think most, maybe all of us were in the same boat.

As I’m anxiously awaiting both the word from the CO to move out and the caffeine pill to kick in, artillery starts up again—not as far away this time. A sheaf of artillery lands, maybe 2 km away. Thirty seconds later, four or five new impacts land but this time about a kilometer and a half away … steadily marching toward us, not away.

After another sheaf impacts within a thousand meters, the troop command net lights up with exhortations to assault the objective—the artillery isn’t friendly, and we need to get up there and silence whatever units are firing it at us. We tear off, I close up my hatch, and now the adrenaline plus caffeine is really kicking in big time.

With SGT Planter scanning through his thermal sights, and the rest of the platoon and troop blitzing forward, we roll up on our objective—another small air field in the middle of nowhere—without contact. By now it’s approaching 0300. After the squadron consolidates, we set off to the east again, pausing for a few minutes while the 3rd squadron clears their area and transfers control to the 82nd Airborne.

Sun rises, I think

Once the consolidation and transfer of control is completed, I’ve somehow managed to stay awake until the morning breaks. Or at least I think it has; the cloud cover is thick and gray, but we can see now so I guess it’s daytime. I’ve been awake now for at least 77 hours in a row, and it sucks. There is a light of hope, however. As we’re consolidating just east of this objective, we’ve stopped in place and SFC Young has started a sleep plan—a 75% plan, where three crew members stay alert and one is able to go to sleep. The LT orders me to sleep, something that I am in no way shape or form going to fight back against. I grab my tanker’s jacket, hop on the back deck, and in what must have been just seconds, I am asleep. So asleep, as I write in my book, that I almost sleep through an enemy artillery barrage (fortunately, SGT Planter is able to wake me up so we can haul ass backward). After we pull to safety, another FRAGO sends us moving again.

Off we go, on another movement to contact east, and in the process run across a small enemy force, possibly the one directing the artillery. This time, they either don’t realize what’s going on or are determined to defend in place. There’s a brief exchange of fire. Three enemy PCs are destroyed, and POWs are processed. The skies have cleared, though, so that’s nice.

Another few hours later, near dusk, we make additional contact with enemy forces. These, however, are less determined that those at our previous encounter, and surrender immediately. What they are, however, is members of the Republican Guard—the Tawalkana division. This is much more of a surprise. These are supposed to be the best in the Iraqi Army, battle tested and fiercely loyal, yet they were no more willing than the conscripts we’ve been seeing to stand and fight. Interesting.

Most of the rest of the day we spend moving and pausing, moving and pausing, until we get to a position about 10 km or so from the ar Rumaylah oil fields, as the top of the trap to prevent the Republican Guard from escaping north. As night falls, we set up a screen line and for the first time, a real sleep plan. I had guard duty first, and then I slept—unhindered, this time.

Eighty-eight hours awake, minus about 2 minutes on the back deck earlier on this day. But, at least there was some sleep. Just in time, too, as we’d find out in the morning.

Everything goes to eleven

With night having fallen on the 25th, we continued to push harder, to get more exhausted, and started making actual contact with enemy forces. Sometime over the course of the dark hours of 25–26 FEB we had met all of our advance objectives, and were conducting a moving screen for the XVIII Corps right flank with the 24th Infantry Division to our north, with both units starting to pivot to the east facing toward Basra.

Overnight changes

First among the new FRAGOs we received was for our limit of advance to be pushed forward, and for us to move to and occupy an intermediate position, moving into positions to screen the 24th Infantry as they moved into position to assault on two air fields in their immediate area, Tallil and Jalibah. Third Squadron occupied an objective west of Al Bussayyah sometime in the early morning hours, and then transferred control of this objective to the 82nd Airborne Division.

During this time, what is in my recalled memory is a lot of the same relentless driving as had been going on both of the two days prior. A lot of chilly nights and empty desert. I also recall one specific incident that involved my CVC helmet.

Just a couple of days prior to the start of Operation Desert Sabre, there was an informal, metaphorical gauntlet thrown down at the feet of my crew by the crew of C-66, the CO’s tank. They suggested that their crew was far better at individual tank maintenance than we were, something that was profoundly offensive (and, of course, patently incorrect). We pushed back at such arrogantly boisterous claims, and so the crew of 66 suggested a bit of a wager: every time a crew had an issue with their tank that arose from that crew’s failure to properly maintain their tank, it would be marked down; whichever crew’s tally had the fewest marks would be the winner and the losing crew would buy beer and steaks when we got back to the States.

To this point during Desert Sabre, neither crew had accumulated a single mark—any time we had a hot refuel, we both (and most if not all other tank’s crews) took whatever time was available while other vehicles in the troop were fueling up to do basic “during operation” maintenance, walking track to inspect for loose bolts and end connectors and such. As a result, there just hadn’t been anything to mark down.

That is, until the shell of my CVC helmet flew off during today’s march northward. I don’t recall the specifics, but what I do remember is that I had one of the few CVC helmets that came with a Kevlar shell (as most of the shells are fiberglass, but older versions were Kevlar). What I barely recall is that there may have been issues finding the straps and other hardware that snapped the outer shell to the padded liner (which also housed the earphones and microphone), and so my shell was held in place only by a hook-and-pile fastener. With that, there was one or two rectangular patches of the hook portion that were glued into the shell’s inner surface, and two patches of the pile portion that were part of the liner.

Well, mine gave way. I remember the moment it happened, too. We were marching north at about 25 km/hour—I know you’re shocked to find that we were still incessantly moving—and I was reaching out to either grab the MRE box to distribute MREs to the rest of the crew, or was putting the box away again afterward, when whoosh off it flew. I must have jostled something, or maybe we hit a bump, but it was gone, floating away into the desert, presumably never to be seen again …

Except that—naturally—the crew of C-66 happened to see something unusual sitting on the desert floor, and made a quite mocking radio call to announce that they’d managed to find a particular item that probably almost certainly definitely belonged to C-21 (it had my nickname written on the back bottom edge in black Sharpie®), and that they would hold onto it until such time as it was safe to return it to the proper owner.

Dawn breaks, as do some of the enemy

From the beginning of morning nautical twilight on the 26th we started seeing enemy personnel more frequently, and so far none of them are in organized units but are instead stragglers who have managed to escape their units without being shot by their Iraqi leadership. In the morning and afternoon of this day our first (scout) platoon (a.k.a. “Red” platoon) would come across a few such enemy soldiers who immediately surrendered, and were given food and water and then processed by the MPs. Scout and tank platoons really don’t have any organic method for dealing with enemy POWs, but MPs do (it is part of the MP job description to guard prisoners, and it doesn’t matter who those prisoners are) and 3d ACR had an organic MP element just for this purpose. Well, okay, not only this purpose, they also do traffic control and ingress/egress control and a few other police-y things. But POWs are one of those things.

We, however, continue without breaking

We continued our march, acting as a moving screen line to the south and east of the 24th Infantry as they moved to secure the two air fields. Late in the daylight hours we occupied our next objective approximately 20 km northwest of Al Bussayyah. As we approached this objective, scattered reports of light enemy contact and resistance peppered through the various command nets, although none of it was in 1st Squadron’s area. The fact that anyone was engaging enemy forces on a radio net I could hear was enough to get my brain to kickstart the epinephrine again, so I was quite and fully awake and alert.

Once we secured the objective, for the first time we actually stopped and did the first stationary resupply of the ground war—mostly fuel, food, and water. Although I think there might have been time to figure out how to get a power nap in, my blood was filled with catecholamines and I was in no way going to be able to get even a few seconds of sleep. So, awake I stayed. By the time we left our objective after nightfall, eastbound in a movement to contact toward another small air field slightly northwest of Al Bussayyah, I had been awake for 65 hours straight, with no end in sight. I suspect many of my troop mates were in exactly the same boat, though I hope some of them had been able to catch a few winks during our pause on objective Red Prime. We were going to need all of our energy for what was coming.

Oh, and I got my helmet cover back on Red Prime, as well. And I grabbed wire and snips, threading the wire through small holes where the missing straps would have been screwed into the cover and punching them through the material of the liner, then twisting them together. Almost like sewing the damned thing onto the liner with metal wire thread. It worked well enough, as I didn’t have any further trouble with it, but crap. First ding of the war and it was all because of that stupid helmet cover.