Page 10 - Aerotech News and Review 9-4-15

Veteran’s News
Veterans remember Gulf War 25 years later
CZ.FHBO-PDLF4JNQTPO on Soviet equipment, Soviet doctrine,”
Fort Campbell, Ky.
7ZHQW\¿YH\HDUVDJRODVWPRQWK the world … it’s probably one of the
Iraq invaded Kuwait. Shortly there-
after, the 101st Airborne Division de-
ployed to the Middle East as part of
the U.S. response to the action in what
became known as the Gulf War.
Screaming Eagles mission
As a part of Operation Desert
Shield, the 101st Airborne Division
deployed to Saudi Arabia to keep Sad-
dam Hussein’s forces from spilling
into other Middle Eastern countries.
“The Iraqi army was [invading]
Kuwait, and the purpose of Desert
Shield was to shield Saudi Arabia,”
said Fort Campbell Historian John
2¶%ULHQ³7KHVWGXULQJWKRVH¿UVW conducted in a single day.” Securing
few months in Desert Shield, patrolled
the border between Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia to provide early warning for
the other two divisions who were over
there.”
Operation Desert Shield continued
from August 1990 into early 1991
before Operation Desert Storm com-
menced, Jan. 17. The 101st Airborne
'LYLVLRQ¿UHGWKH¿UVWVKRWVRIWKHZDU from England into the parachute drop
to destroy Iraqi radar sites. Then-Lt.
Col. Richard “Dick” Cody led a force
of six Apache helicopters from 1st
Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment,
that took out the air defense around
Baghdad.
Then, units from Fort Campbell
moved some 300 miles from the bor-
der between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
to the west, where the division estab-
lished Tactical Assembly Area Camp-
bell. While the air war began in Janu-
ary, the ground war commenced Feb.
24 as the 101st Airborne’s three bri-
gades went on to conduct the longest
and largest air assault to date.
“In 96 hours, the 101st Airborne
Division moved three brigades over
350 miles,” O’Brien said. “It was re-
ally a huge accomplishment back then.
The division was at the height of its
air assault capability at the time. The
division earned an Arrowhead on the
campaign streamer for the air assault
into Iraq that established [Forward
Operating Base] Cobra - 1st Brigade.
Then the next day, 3rd Brigade assault-
ed deeper into Iraq to cut Highway
8 - there’s a highway that goes from
Baghdad to Basra, so we cut that to
cut off the Republican Guard. The Re-
SXEOLFDQ*XDUGZHUH¿YHGLYLVLRQVRI In the days before cell phones, Skype
Saddam’s best soldiers, who were cut
off and isolated and then destroyed by
the U.S. VII Corps and the attack heli-
copters from the 101st on the Highway
of Death.”
The ground war was won in 100
hours as the 101st Airborne Division
helped cut off communications, delved
deep into Iraq within striking distance
of Baghdad and blocked escape routes
for Hussein’s forces. O’Brien said the
quick victory was possible because
the U.S. military’s strategy was “very,
very right.”
“[The] Army that had been training
for 15 years for how to defeat the So-
viet Union, the Iraqi army was built
10
O’Brien said. “There was a huge fear
that they were the fourth-best army in
played a major role in the largest air assault in history that secured Forward Operating Base Cobra during Operation
few times, as a matter of fact I know
it’s the only time in the Army’s history
where we trained and equipped to de-
feat the enemy that we faced.”
Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Robert
G. Nichols served for 32 years, and
now works as the Fort Campbell His-
torical Foundation’s executive direc-
tor. In 1990, he was 1st Brigade’s ser-
geant major and played a vital role in
securing Forward Operating Base, or
FOB, Cobra. The 101st Airborne’s of-
¿FLDOFRPPDQGUHSRUWRIWKH*XOI:DU to Vietnam. I deployed at 18, came
compiled by 2nd Battalion, 44th Air
Defense Artillery 1st Lt. Clifford Lip-
pard, said “the establishment of FOB
Cobra was the largest air assault ever
had nothing to do with the decision to
FOB Cobra, along with 3rd Brigade’s
air assault to the Euphrates River, al-
lowed the division to halt the Iraqis
from escaping along Highway 8.
“We were leading the division into
the attack, in the assault,” Nichols re-
called. “The helicopter ride, I’m told
now, I didn’t know then, was about the
same length of time that the 101st road
PDGHWRVKLIWWRWKHVSHFL¿FQHHGVRI
in Normandy, the length of ride was
about the same.”
1LFKROVVDLGRQHRIWKHPRVWVLJQL¿- while Army drivers carried around a
cant things to remember about the Gulf
War is that it “had a start, a middle and
an end.” The engagement was much
more cut and dry than the U.S. Armed
Forces’ continued presence in Iraq and
Afghanistan today as a result of the
Global War on Terror.
“We didn’t know when we were go-
ing to come home, but we knew that
we would come home when it was
over,” he said. “Soldiers deploying
today do multiple deployments and
they have a rotation on the calendar of
a window of time — not necessarily
a day — but a window of time they
would come home. In the Gulf War …
we had no clue because it was until the
mission was done.”
A different deployment
Soldiers deployed without much
ORJLVWLFDOVXSSRUWDW¿UVWDQG1LFKROV
said they lived out of their rucksacks
for more than a month. They also
started making postcards from meals
ready to eat, or MREs, boxes when
letter-writing supplies became short.
and accessible email, Nichols talked
to his wife just three times during his
seven-month deployment.
“We lived with what we deployed
with,” he said of the division’s arrival
in Saudi Arabia. “My soldiers didn’t
JHWWKHLU¿UVWKRWPHDOXQWLODIWHUDERXW
30 to 32 days in country. We were
living straight on MREs. When you
don’t have infrastructure and systems
in place and you do a forward deploy-
ment, you don’t have anything.”
Some 500,000 soldiers deployed in
support of Operations Desert Shield
and Desert Storm — half of the Army
at the time. While it had been only 15
years since U.S. troops left Vietnam,
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Courtesy photograph
Command Sgt. Maj. Robert G. Nichols, now retired, deployed to the Middle East with 1st Brigade in 1990. Nichols
Desert Storm, Feb. 24, 1991.
Nichols said the country’s mood to- era green jungle boots as well. Retired similar to Vietnam, Underhill said.
ward the war itself and its treatment MSgt. Randal Underhill, 101st Air- “Desert Storm, I look back at it
of returning service members was borne Division Association executive
completely different. Yellow ribbons secretary and treasurer, deployed for now, and it was the last war that was
were displayed throughout communi- the first time as private with Bravo dominated by Vietnam leadership,” he
ties nationwide, and returning Soldiers Company, 1st Battalion, 187th Infan- VDLG³$OOWKH¿UVWVHUJHDQWVKDGEHHQ
came home to happy welcome home try Regiment, 3rd Brigade, in October in Vietnam. A lot of the senior NCOs
ceremonies, much like Screaming 1990. The Soldiers had to get creative >QRQFRPPLVVLRQHGRI¿FHUV@$ORWRI
Eagles experience today. to make the boots functional in the WKHVHQLRURI¿FHUV«WRDODUJHGHJUHH
desert environment. I would say that we did things much
“When I was a young lad I deployed like they probably did during Vietnam.
“We’d take tape and put tape on the Where they had been trained to do in
home at 19 as a buck sergeant. My inside of the drain holes, because the Vietnam, we just adapted it to the des-
country was mad at me,” Nichols said. VDQGLQ6DXGL$UDELDZDVVR¿QHWKDWLW ert.”
“Our country, I think, learned from would literally go through those little
their mistakes, because the Soldiers drain holes in the side of the jungle Importance of air assault
ERRWDQG¿OO\RXUERRWVIXOORIVDQG´ Operations Desert Shield and Des-
go … What was really special [after Underhill said.
Desert Storm] was going to the pa- ert Storm ushered in the height of the
rades in Washington, D.C., and going Underhill, a machine gunner at 101st Airborne’s air assault capability.
to the parades in Nashville in support the time, also carried the same M60 Underhill remembers few vehicles or
of our soldiers. Today we have special Screaming Eagles used in Vietnam.
events every time a plane arrives.” The equipment was not the only thing See GULF WAR, Page 11
Despite modernization of the Army Courtesy photograph
since Vietnam, Nichols remembers
how many changes still needed to be The 101st Airborne Division deployed to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation
Desert Shield in August 1990. Army drivers coated green Army vehicles with
combat in the Middle East. Pens and a slurry of mud to better blend in with the desert surroundings.
markers stopped working after about
three months because of the heat,
FDQRIPXGWRFDPRXÀDJHWKHJUHHQ
military vehicles in the desert.
“We might have had what is com-
monly called the chocolate chip uni-
form that consisted of a cover for the
helmet, pants and a shirt and a cover
for your pack and a few other inciden-
tals,” he said. “We didn’t have cover-
LQJIRUWKHÀDFNYHVW:HGLGQ¶WKDYH
the body armor they have today. We
KDGWKHROGÀDFNYHVWZKLFKZRXOGQRW
stop a bullet but would stop shrapnel,
supposedly. That’s the difference in the
investment in our Armed Forces from
then and today. The body armor and
equipment was not that much different
than Vietnam.”
The soldiers still wore the Vietnam-
September 3, 2015