The Path to the Shield (Part 2)

Coming back to Ft. Bliss from our gunnery, we weren't absolutely sure what was next, but we felt reasonably confident that we were being re-tasked for a probable deployment to the Middle East. As a result, the next few weeks proceeded as an orgy of changes. At the time (and for most of the three or four decades prior), 3d ACR, along with all of III Corps, had been preparing, training, and planning for—and stood ready to execute—a REFORGER mission (REturn of FORces to GERmany) with a specific focus of reinforcing the US Army Europe in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion of central Europe. That alone required the Brave Rifles to completely shift gears, since it was not the grassy plains of Northern Germany nor the thickly forested Bavarian and Hessian hills and mountain ranges and valleys, but the vast emptiness of the Arabian desert that would see the first combat deployment for the Regiment since WW II. Not that we were unfamiliar with desert warfare; we were stationed at Ft. Bliss, TX, in El Paso after all, and did all of our local training either in the desert surrounding the base, or in Doña Ana, NM, in the same high desert and basin region as Ft. Bliss. We also did rotations to the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, CA—as did many stateside units—which is an even more unforgiving desert than that found near El Paso, and is actually pretty similar to some parts of the Arabian peninsula in its geography: lots of sand and rocks, long stretches of flatness interrupted with stretches of rocks and sand. (There are, however, mountains near El Paso.)
Shoulder patch for the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment (3d ACR)

I don't recall exactly what day the official orders were announced, but I believe it was sometime in mid-August—the orders that the 3d ACR was no longer a Corps asset for the III Corps, but had been reassigned to the XVIII Airborne Corps, and ordered to begin preparations to deploy to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the cavalry regiment for the Corps. From that point for the next few days, we spent almost all of our workdays on finalizing the physical equipment for transport to the theater, culminating in a final railhead along with US Army Reserve units who specialize in logistics. My tank, "Cool Breeze," was on a flat car on her way to Beaumont, TX, to be loaded onto a US Navy RORO (Roll-On, Roll-Off) ship for the long float toward the Persian Gulf.
One of the changes that occurred was a change in my assignment; where I had been the gunner on the Troop Commander's tank, C-66 (a.k.a "Black 6" in the shorthand radio parlance), almost the whole time I'd been at Ft. Bliss, along with the orders for the re-assignment came a change of personnel including an influx of NCOs. With no TC spots open in the troop, one of the NCOs was reassigned to be the gunner on C-66, and I was moved to the Loader's spot on C-21 ("Cool Breeze"). I can tell you that I was not at all happy about it; being gunner in an M1A1 tank is one of the best jobs in the Army, bar none. I did, however, understand the reality of an NCO doing an NCO's job, and a Specialist doing a Specialist's job. Due to my experience as the gunner on 66, which often resulted in me being a de facto Tank Commander, the Platoon Leader of 2nd platoon gained a tremendously experienced self-starter for a loader, a real asset for a first-time platoon leader. (C-21 is the tank of 2nd platoon's platoon leader, usually a 2nd Lieutenant though sometimes a 1st Lieutenant.) This was in addition to already having as his gunner an NCO with a long history of experience, including stints as a TC in the past.

Two soldiers from 3d ACR performing tank maintenance just before taking the tank to the railhead.

With our tanks (and Bradleys, and all of our crew-served equipment along with most of our other medium & heavy equipment) en route to the Gulf, we spent a lot of time doing classroom training, a change for a unit that had spent more than 70% of the last 14 months doing field training. Our classes included Vehicle ID, platoon & troop sandbox training, as well as UCOFT gunnery. The UCOFT (Unit Conduct Of Fire Trainer) was a computer-based tank gunnery simulator, highly customizable and very good for training Tank Commanders and their Gunners in the crew actions of fire commands, conduct of fire, and action drills. It doesn't involve the entire crew, however, so those of us who were neither gunners nor TCs were often tasked with detail work: painting, cleaning, and so forth, when we were not doing other training exercises.
Another of the changes required us to do a considerable amount of learning about the Iraqi army, their armored systems, their tactics, their small arms & crew served weapons, and the experience of the Iraqi army during the 8–year long Iran/Iraq war. The last part was the one most frequently drilled into our heads: the Iraqi army, and in particular the Republican Guard, was a battle-hardened army with years of combat experience in the desert. We were not to underestimate their ability to wage war. We were reminded that there had been reports of chemical attacks by the Iraqis, and to expect that any actual conflict with Iraq would result in chemical attacks. We were constantly tested on this point; “GAS GAS GAS” screams from the senior NCO staff or the tripping of an M9 chemical alarm on purpose happened frequently enough to be annoying, but the reminder was always the same: you will die, with mustard gas in your lungs or with nerve agent on your skin, if you don’t take the threat seriously.
We also did some non-standard training, for a Regimental Armored Cavalry Troop with just under half of its personnel being tank crewmen: we practiced Close Quarter Battle (CQB) and urban warfare as dismounted soldiers. Now, I'd been stationed in Germany before coming to Bliss, and in neither place was it ever really a consideration for tankers to dismount and take the fight to the enemy on foot absent a temporary situation involving a tank that was completely inoperable, but a continued need to fight. We did, though; practiced storming the barracks, one half of the troop acting as defending OPFOR (OPposing FORce) and the other half as attacking BLUEFOR. It was fun, exhausting, and enlightening for tankers who hadn't really done much of that in the past.

There was also one completely unexpected side benefit: nearly every day, we were "released" (that is, no longer expected to be "at work" and "on duty") at the after-lunch formation. So, usually somewhere around 13:00 to 14:00 we would have our formation, receive any updates, and then be dismissed for the day. I don't recall ever being told specifically why, but it always seemed to me that it was a command decision to allow the Regiment, especially those with families, to spend as much time with their families as they reasonably could before deploying to the Gulf. To those of us in the barracks, however, it was just extra party time—and boy, howdy, did we take advantage. I will spare the lurid details, but I will just mention that the proprietors of Spanky's, Cosmos, the Cave (as we called it, not necessarily the actual name of the establishment), Tequila Mockingbirds, and a whole host of other establishments in Ciudad Juàrez, Chihuahua, Mexico, were probably quite happy between August and October of 1990. Yes, soldiers sometimes drink when they are off-duty.

As August stretched into September, training continued and some of our troop mates were allowed to be discharged; there was a stop-loss order for soldiers whose ETS (End of Time in Service, I believe) dates were after a certain date, but there were a few whose ETS dates were before that, and they were allowed to separate as they normally would.

Finally, in the last few days of September, we received the final official order to deploy. An advanced party was set up—these are usually a few officers, NCOs, and enlisted soldiers who leave a few days ahead of the majority of the unit, called the "main body", and help coordinate the arrival of the main body—and flew out to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The rest of us stayed behind, cleaned the barracks to within an inch of its life, and stored all of the personal items we would not be able to take with us to Saudi in our wall lockers. Then, on 30 SEP 1990, we locked them, witnessed them being banded and secured, drew our service weapons and tank sidearms (for tankers in the 3d ACR, that would be the M9 Beretta semi-automatic pistol for each crewmember, with two M16A2 rifles per tank), and loaded our personal gear and ourselves onto a 747, to begin our long flight.

First, we flew to Kansas City for a short stop, then onto Nova Scotia (in neither place, deplaning), and thence to Frankfurt. Once at Frankfurt, we did deplane, with about a two-hour layover in the USO facility there on base. We were able to make brief phone calls home, play ping-pong and foosball or watch TV, and stretch our legs. Soon, we resumed our flight, and took off for Greece. A short layover in Greece, then a hop to Saudi Arabia, and we disembarked into a night of still-brutal heat and dryness.

Even being from a desert, and training in a desert, the very air of Saudi Arabia seemed to suck the moisture out of my skin—how I imagine the Fremen felt without stillsuits, on Arrakis—and upon deplaning for the final time we were urgently handed a single liter bottle of water, and instructed to immediately quaff it. We were further ordered to drink water at every opportunity, to fill our 2 two-liter Desert Canteens whenever we had the chance, and to maintain our awareness of our exertion level to avoid becoming heat casualties. Our path to the Shield ended here; we were officially the Desert Shield.