Page 104 - 100 Hours to Destiny

spinning in 360-degree circles looking for that next wave of aircraft. We
Marines kept shouting to them to come on, and we kept waving them on as
well. Slowly but surely one by one they made it to Lt D. Kindle and Lt Abdul.
Lt Abdul pushed his hands out as if to say, “stop, don’t come any closer.” A
team of approx. 12 heavily armed scouts from 1/9 stood there with weapons
at the ready to protect against a surprise. I was ready to man the pintle
mount, ready to unleash fury at the slightest provocation.

Lt David Kindle, left, and Lt Abdul, the
Kuwaiti Interpreter, right, worked together
to harness a large group of Iraqi prisoners.
The POWs were petrified of the aircraft
overhead. Lt Abdul’s words and actions
saved countless Iraqi Soldiers lives by
sending them South.

The Iraqi troops were breathing heavy and falling to their knees in
exhaustion. They began to beg for water and food, they were absolutely at
their end. Many of the men shook uncontrollably and the look in their eyes
was complete and total shell shock. Lt Abdul asked our Marines to give them
some water and some MREs and that was done. But Delta Company had a
mission and our mission was not to take the time to take these prisoners into
custody, we were on a high-speed blitz to get into Kuwait City. So, with that
Lt Abdul told the exhausted POWs that they were to march south and at this
point they would be safe if they just marched south and waived their
surrender flags, but they were scared to leave our custody. They were scared
that the planes would return and as Lt Abdul tried to calm them down to
have belief that they were safe, they would not hear of it. They began to beg
Lt Abdul not to send them back into the desert and to escort them to safety.
And it took Lt Abdul, finally, again to pull his pistol and warn them to start
moving or he would shoot them. Reluctantly and slowly, the enemy
prisoners moved away with tears in their eyes and started a slow,
disorganized march south. Delta got ready to roll again.
As we all got back on our LAVs Captain Pollard reported over the net,
“Good job Delta, but here’s the new SOP, at this point we are going to no
longer stop for any enemy troops. We are going to meet any threat with
overwhelming firepower, we’re not stopping for anything from here on out
unless it’s a firefight. Forward march.” And with that, a new SOP was in place
and the drive forward continued with even further hardened hearts.