Desert Storm Anniversary
Thirty-two years ago saw the launch of Desert Storm. The softening up of targets was initiated on 17 Jan 1991 before the ground invasion began.
The invasion came to a close with the American-led Liberation of Kuwait on 28 February 1991.
Category: Gulf War
Good times, feeling old.
Same here.
It was such a goofy one-sided war. They said war was Hell, it wasn’t. Of course I didn’t fight since I was in a signal van the whole time as a junior EM.
As seen in Three Kings (well, Hollyweird… ):
The gold was real!
…although the Kuwaitis claimed some of it was missing.
I know what you mean, and I’m not trying to be a dick, but causalities might have been ‘light’, unless it happened to be your squadron. Spirit 03.
You were still humping around the 90mm recoilless then?
Our breaching tool.
Fond memories of seeing the smoking hulks of Iraqi armor along the Highway of Death between Kuwait and Iraq.
Was still there in ’03.
My friends Cousin was there and when he came to visit, he had a shitload of pictures of the vehicles on the highway of death. WOW.
Spent most of my portion of that war running a TRC-170 relay site halfway between Riyadh and KKMC. Kept the AN/GRC-106 tuned to the BBC, otherwise we wouldn’t have known wtf was going on anywhere. On this day 32 years ago, I remember looking up and seeing a double shitload of B-52 contrails, and thinking shit just got real.
I can’t believe this is 32 years distant already…. hell, I can’t believe round two started 20 years ago…
Yep..
Do we EVER remember..
Everyone and their Grandma in the US Army WANTED to go into that Sandbox because they wanted a Combat Patch on their left sleeve…
Well, not Everyone. We do believe there were Medical Doctors who protested about having to go forward…Some Commissioned Medical Officers TRUE colors came out, saying “I didn’t join the Army to do this…”
Yes, there were useless Officers out there…
😆😉
Hope they were weeded out of the Army…
Back to the Combat Patch…Always be careful what you wish for…
9-11…
Salute to our DS Veterans to include Jonn Lilyea…
Reminds me of this quote:
“There are four kinds of Marines: those in Saudi Arabia, those going to Saudi Arabia, those who want to go to Saudi Arabia, and those who don’t want to go to Saudi Arabia but are going anyway.’’ – General Alfred M. Gray
Had a CPT/O3 try to get out of OIF I by whining she had to care for her husband and kids, all of whom were able-bodied w/ no issues. (“My troops don’t have to trust me, only my Senior Rater has to trust me,” she said before that.) She went.
Oh, yes, we know alot about some Officers, both Male and Female, who tried everything to NOT go forward in the Sandbox during OEF/OIF…
BIG mistake on their part. All we did was pick up the phone, contacted their Branch Manager AND their Chain of Command to let everyone know what kind of Soldiers they really were..
We remembered right after 9-11, alot of Senior Officers trying to stretch their AC time to 25-30 years all of the sudden put in their retirement papers.
Then we had MOS and Branches that were NOT allowed to “retire” because of shortages…some of them somehow managed to not get deployed…You talk about losing respect for those folks…
Takes All Kinds…
Thank You for sharing!
Hey, go to Fort Hood… 37,000 folk, with lots of field graders and SGMs w/o a combat patch– some PCS-ed back and forrth around post for 15 years and somehow didn’t go to the sandbox. It’s a mystery!
Jonn and Lex. Two extraordinary men who never knew the influence and impact they had on a stressed SFC. Slow salute…
Amen
“Combat” patches are on the right sleeve.
Thank You for the correction!
We both have “Combat Patches” and when we retired, we boxed all of our uniforms, so we completedly forgot which side…🤭 We have not put on military clothing since retirement to include our Dress Blues…
Need more folks such as yourself to correct our errors!
We are just not into that stuff. We served, retired, then moved on to the next Chapter in our lives, i.e. different jobs. Family has become a priority.
Thank You again!
👍👍👍
And 33 years ago today, the bitch set Marion Barry up.
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/press-past/2013/01/17/dcs-mayor-was-arrested-for-smoking-crack-23-years-ago
Ahh..
You are picking on our favorite Mayor…
😉
Use dope, get a statue? (This one should’ve been in a Captain Morgan pose though.)
No!!!!!
Eye Bleach needed now!!!
And who can forget this one…
*Sigh*
Ah yes, who can forget the angel-food cake fork repurposed a a hair grooming tool.
Marionberry. My favorite ice cream. No, it doesn’t taste like hookers and cocaine.
When he was about fourteen, my son saw the label on a marion berry pie and wanted to know why they would name a pie after that corrupt SOB.
Sounds like an awesome kid!
Seeing as this is a DESERT STROM thread, did you know that many air refueling anchors during the war were named after fruits/berries (Blackberry, Cherry, strawberry, etc.) Of course someone working in the CAOC had a sense of humor so one was named Marion Berry.
I was at Ft Ord, 7 th ID (L), which didn’t deploy. However in august after Sadaam invaded we immediately started doing ruck marches in pro masks, more NBC training. My unit HHB 7/15 FA even had one yahoo who immediately claimed to be a conscientious objector. He refused to carry a weapon, Took a couple of months to get rid of him. They eventually pulled select MOSs to augment units. 13B, 11B. Most ended up pulling guard duty or driving trucks.
My older sister an Air Force nurse deployed in August with an ATH (AirTransportable Hospital) My younger sister and her husband both Army Med Service Corps officers at Ft Benning. He deployed right after Thanksgiving she was made rear detachment commander of her unit. I was a staff officer at Langley and got back on active flying status and did a bunch of stateside flight test, foreign material exploitation, and tactics development and evaluation, until i got sent forward in January as a CENTAF augmentee. I flew about every 4 to 5 days averagy sortie duration was about 14.5 hours. I worked in CAOC combat plans when not flying. My brother-in-laws 4 years came up and he pinned on Captain inside Iraq proper during the ground war.
To this day I am convinced my younger sister had the toughest job of any us. Riding heard on the sick, lame and lazy and all her inherited problems was migrane on steroids.
I was a rear detachment 1SG in late 2010-early 2011. Nearly put me, the commander, and training NCO in rehab.
Dealing with…
Apparently, the way the Army operated was different from what I was used. One example was they were tasked with deploying a number of 13 person medical detachments. But they only had authorized/assigned 11 folks for each of these UTCs. So they’d reach out to other posts and get a couple folks to augment and round out the med det. She got called from a dependent wife at Ft Carson because her husband took the checkbook with him when he went to Benning to marry up with his deployment package. The kid from Ft Polk who went AWOL between the Columbus airport and Benning. They found him in Tennessee.
We had some officers who liked to pull that forced march in gas mask shit on us, so we took the outlet valves out the M17A1 masks. We were breathing fine, and running their dicks into the dirt. They never caught on, but after making them look bad enough times they stopped doing that.
“Jonn was a platoon sergeant (of different platoons) in Charley Co. 1/41st Infantry in the 3rd Brigade of the Second Armored Division Forward which was attached to the 1st Infantry Division during Desert Storm.”
https://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=80829
Rest In Peace, Sir.
Salute.
Never Forget…
OK fuckers, I can still hear his voice…I’m not crying, you’re…fuck it…I’m tearing up.(Edit: Fuck it, I’m full on crying in my office. No idea why…Jonn was gotdamn AWESOME….)
Jonn: STOP CRYING YOU LITTLE BITCH!!!! Jesus fucking CHRIST!!, I only Died, it’s no big DEAL! Square your SHIT away, for Christ sake.”
https://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=43351
CLASSIC GOLD!!!
Thank You, Chip!
TRUE Infantry NCO…He ripped that guy to pieces!
LOVE IT!
Rest In Peace, Warrior. We Miss You!
Boy, that sounds like one my bad ass platoon sergeants back in the 509th.
Loved the audio where the guy was drunk, screaming and was coming over to kill Jonn. Jonn told him to pack a sandwich because he may be there for a while. The nicer Jonn was, the more enraged the guy became.
I never got to meet John, but we emailed back and forth quite a few times before he passed. Some of his short responses were straight gold.
RIP good sir
“Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words . . . be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.”
I will be raising a glass or two later this evening in remembrance.
Spent my time in the desert inspecting water sources, field kitchens, and latrines.
Three months in the rear, at least rear by Marine Corps standards. We were set up at Al Jubayl, not to be confused with Al Jarreau. Late one Thursday afternoon in October, Hack Stone got orders for a special assignment, toip secret, hush hush. He was going to Ground Radio Technicians Course in 29 Stumps. That’s right, this joker was going to Top Soldering Gun. So many pleasant memories of playing volleyball with the bros on the beach of Lake Bandini.
The Kids are still crying nowadays about Camp Wilson. Hell they have a PX, a snackbar etc out there. We had a couple of a frames that the officers got. We did have a shower house and a mobile haircut truck would show up once a week. Being the senior Motor T personnel there, I would sign out a CUCV and make pizza and beer runs on the sly.
Back in the Summer of 1982, Hack Stone was on a C&E working party to erect those A-Frames at Camp Wilson. Interesting side note on that particular working party was that C&E Lance Corporal in charge of us wrote up to Marines for Article 87, Missing Military Movement. When we got to Camp Wilson, they got pulled to police the Police Lot, so when they got done, about 10:00, the guy running the compound let them hang out in the Beer Hall, so they shot pool all day. They missed the 11:00 truck taking us back to mainside for lunch, at which point, we got back on the truck and went back to Camp Wilson to build more A-Frames.
Pretty sure that Hack posted that Article 15 fiasco on here before. Holstein and Lewis, if you are still out there, your high jinks live on.
I remember pulling out a bag of M&Ms while at Camp Wilson. They didn’t have a “nuggetty” feel to them. It was pure liquid from the melted chocolate and candy coating. I tore off a corner and squeezed it into my mouth like astronaut food.
091022-M-0000C-000.jpg (5627×1882) (defense.gov)
My BZ goes out to all you Gals and Guys who served in that operation. and your right, where did the time go. I thought the same when we had the 50th (2015) anniversary of Op Power pack back in 1965.
Red Sea Ops, #1 loitered to save gas and 200 ft all day, rigging merchies and the odd warship. Possibly the most boring flying I ever did.
Good intentions. Getting in and out may have been a wise decision then – that might have been replicated later. Destroy everything the enemy has, then leave. Let them pick up the pieces and weep.
Interesting podcast featuring a few friends of mine:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gulf-war-veterans-of-593rd-and-516th-signal-company/id1573060506?i=1000553403802
We’re all fucked up in one way or another.
Wow….
Thank You for sharing!
I sent a prayer up that our Warriors would be safe as they blasted our enemies to Hell. My Boy (step son) was hunkered down with the other lads in 3/15 Inf, 24th Mech. My older brother was babysitting B1Bs in Dakota. And yeah, the Ready Force had the nukes on ’em. I wrapped up in my DD-214 Blanky and took a nap, trusting on God and others to keep my happy azz safe.
Landed in Saudi Arabia on 1/15/91, deadline day.
Photo at the end of my 5 day swing through Iraq and Kuwait,
ending at this last EPW drop off in Saudi Arabia.
1 hour after this photo,
8 of us in 4 deuces split / escaped from the MP Co.
in charge of the convoy,
and returned to our PAARNG unit in Log Base Echo.
We did not get in trouble.
It was only supposed to be 4 days.
The MP Co. LIED
when they said we were permanently transferred to their unit.
We knew it, so we vamoosed.
Deceased Phony Gulf War Veteran Les Brown’s
Elko POW*MIA Awareness Ass.
announced days ago that their
2023 CHILI FEED has been “canceled due to health issues”.
What “health issues” (plural)
cause a whole organization’s fundraiser event to be cancelled?
Also… Who can’t spell “CANCELLED”?
Fitting that I got this news today. 🙂
AW GEE WHIZ, what health issues, but then again who cares after seeing all the SV among that group?
The water in the toilet bowl is starting to swirl. There isn’t a full flush yet but the heart and soul of their organization, Les Brown, well… there is Less Brown in the toilet bowl… let’s put it that way. He famously said “They’re coming after our jackets” before calling on members to get the children involved to wear their jackets.
And he went to his grave never admitting he lied…
They could not get the Brown Stains off of the eating utensils.
This Ain’t Hell will be hosting a Chili Feed to raise awareness about apathy. Attend, don’t attend, we don’t really care.