30 years today in the wee (local) hours if I’m not mistaken. Just a few days ago, I ran across these pubs that I collected when I was a young teenage punk. I was super fascinated with the build up and tactics that were used. Collected every book. Respect to all those that served in ODS. o7
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I remember when it kicked off. I had been in the RAF less than a year at the time and didn’t get deployed. Instead I worked extra shifts to cover for those in our tower that did go. It’s hard to believe that was 30 years ago. I’m feeling officially old.
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I was at a meeting to discuss deploying a bunch of reservists like myself to Cyprus to allow regulars serving with the UN to deploy. At lunch I sat at the next table to a Colonel who was discussing the need to set up an R and R area in Saudi with the opportunity to do adventure training and decompress… I tactfully introduced myself and gave a resume of my various instructor tickets and experience. I spent Desert Shield as officer commanding ‘Beach’ (plus canoes, sub aqua, catamarans, deck chairs etc). Desert Storm was less fun.as they found work for me
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I have the first 8 hours or so of CNN coverage recorded to Sony camcorder, including the famous report, “The skies over Baghdad are illuminated.” I remember thinking how utterly insane it would be to go there when they knew they would be in the crosshairs. Not that it’s worth anything. Those reports probably remastered digitally many times over by now.
Funny, I just started reading this in Kindle format last night without thought of the anniversary. Good book 5 chapters in.
Hornets over Kuwait https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005274YJY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_odmbGb5A72AF2
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I deployed from Ft Campbell Ky with the 101st Sig Bn. I remember coming out the C5 and thinking, “It must be an especially hot day”. Spent the next 8 months waiting to go to war. Unfortunately, only the aviation assets and Marines saw anything noteworthy. For the rest of us, it was a boring war interupted only by the Scud alarms. For a while I lived in the desert in a pup tent with our Radio Teletype aka RATT van. My M203 was ready to go and I had a vest full of grenades. After the Airforce destroyed the retreating Iraqi army who was looting cars and all they could find, it was the Airforce that got treated like criminals and the war was halted. I had to wait 12 years for the US to resume that fight in 2003. This time I endured the Scud alerts as a contractor for the Army in Kuwait. Its just weird wearing civilian clothes under a MOPP (chemical) suit.
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I was bouncing a basketball in the driveway when my parents called me in to watch the news. To quote my Dad (active duty USAF at the time) and our neighbor across the street (active duty Army at the time), both were O-5’s and Vietnam vets: “they spit on us for going over there for 2 years back then, and spit on us for not going there for 2 months now.”
I know for many GW1 was considered kind of a high point of US/Western military power and morale authority, but it was interesting to see how a different generation who “had their war” viewed it. And particularly how they viewed the publics opinion on the conflict to contrast their time in Vietnam.
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Opinions are like rear ends…
Summary
…and mine would likely get the thread closed…
Wheels
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Just makes me feel old.
I was 18 at the time.
That makes me…[advanced calculations]…about 21 now. Right?
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In dog years maybe…
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A mere youth still
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I was in Pensacola flying T-34s at the time. All my ground pounder buddies were over there as young Platoon Commanders though.
There is town in Florida named Bagdad. Yes, they misspelled it.
The joke among the students at the time was that when inevitably asked, “What did you do in the war?” we could all proudly claim that we were deployed to the Gulf (of Mexico) and flew many missions over Bagdad (Florida).
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My dad flew over europe during WWII.
He did his basic glider training in Sweden, in -44
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