Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq sic-1

by Tom Clancy

  Soon, Franks knew, he would have to go around to check the pulse of the soldiers and NCOs. How were they handling this? What about the families?

  The family question was especially important for a corps based in Germany. Many American military families were living there — most married soldiers had their spouses and children with them — and in Germany, there was no external family and neighbor support on which the spouses and children could depend. That meant the families would either have to go home to the United States, which few wanted to do, or else depend on each other and on the entire military family in Germany.

  Fred Franks knew he would have to begin working on family issues along with everything else.

  "Let's go," he said to all the others, "we have work to do."

  The TV set was in another part of the ops center, so Franks and his planners reassembled in the conference room. When they were there, he wanted to say a few words, to give the others a chance to collect their thoughts and capture the significance of the moment.

  "Let all this settle in for a few minutes," he said. "This is part of history. You will remember this night for the rest of your lives, and well you should. It is something to tell your kids and grandkids about. There is a personal part for each of us as well. It affects our families. For some it is a first. Others will remember Vietnam. I know we have a lot to do, but I wanted to pause and reflect for a moment, because you will want to remember this night for a long time."

  And then they got down to business.

  Two hours later, they had a pretty good idea of the direction their next days would take. Their major challenge was to figure out the best use of their time. Their major unknown was to answer the most important question: What would VII Corps's mission be? Franks had a pretty good idea that they would not be going down there to defend, but an attack can take many forms, and the corps had to be prepared to undertake any of them. Next, they needed to set an order of deployment quickly so that units could plan accordingly. It seemed best to lead the deployment with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment as the security force, which was one of the traditional roles of a cavalry regiment. But after that, the most immediate requirement was to get in as many engineer, transportation, and communication units as possible, so that they could build some basic infrastructure in the desert. Deploying combat units later would allow them to take advantage of the modern training facilities in Germany before they left. Franks had two other immediate tasks. First, he wanted to assemble the major unit commanders the next morning and issue guidance and listen to what they had to say. The second was to fly down to Saudi Arabia as soon as possible to make a leader's reconnaissance. The leader's recon took place from Sunday, 11 November, to Thursday the fifteenth.

  At home, Denise had seen AFN, as had Margie in Bad Kissingen. This moment was hard for her — it was hard for both of them, as it was for all the families. She had seen him go away to war before, and she knew what that meant, and she knew what the separation meant for families.

  "So now you know what those meetings and trips to Heidelberg have been about," he said after they'd had a chance to sit down and catch their breath in their family room.

  "Now I know," she said. "Fred, I thought you were working to deactivate units in the corps."

  "Look, Denise," he answered, "if it has to be done, VII Corps is trained and ready. We know how to do this. I know how to get it done at least cost to our troops.

  "You and I have been through this before. We both know what to do. Now we have to help others. Who better to do this than you and me?" As he spoke, Franks thought again of Vietnam, the amputee ward, and the opportunities the Army had given him to come back.

  As Fred spoke these words, he could see in her face two conflicting emotions. One, she wished she didn't have to hear them. And two, she was herself a veteran. In the crunch, she was a real rock. "OK," her face was telling him, "you and VII Corps have to go and do what you have to do. It's your job. Just as I'll have my own job here. We'll both do our best." She was an Army wife, and Army wives have their own kind of resolve, discipline, and duty.

  The next day, she was rolling up her sleeves, getting involved with family support for the entire corps, and setting a positive example.

  FRIDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 1990

  Early Friday morning, Franks got two calls from Saudi Arabia. The first was from Major General William "Gus" Pagonis in Dhahran, and the second from Lieutenant General John Yeosock in Riyadh. Yeosock was commander of ARCENT/Third Army, which had now been given the mission to command XVIII Corps and VII Corps under CENTCOM. Before VII Corps had been sent, ARCENT handled logistics and infrastructure for CENTCOM, and XVIII Corps reported to CENTCOM for operations. (This rapid transformation from an infrastructure command to also being a two-corps field command was to prove understandably difficult and take some time.) Gus Pagonis handled logistics for ARCENT, but also directly for the CINC — a job he accomplished so brilliantly that he was promoted to lieutenant general during the course of the Gulf crisis. Pagonis had a talent for making things happen, and for getting what needed to be got, no matter what it took to get it. Both Yeosock and Pagonis, it turned out, were primarily concerned with the immediate difficulties of bringing the enormous VII Corps into the already logistically strapped Gulf theater. The first problem was what to do with them and how to supply them. The mission against the Iraqis — whatever that turned out to be — would be dealt with later.

  When Pagonis called, Franks had no idea who he was; they had never met. In fact, the name did not register; what Franks wrote down on his pad was "Bagonas." After all that was cleared up, Pagonis welcomed Franks and the corps to CENTCOM, and then got down to business.

  "Right, Gus, thanks," Franks said in response to the welcoming words, and then asked, "And so what advice do you have?"

  "That's what I called about," Pagonis said. "The theater is strapped for transportation, and for tents and cots for your troops. We were just getting up to speed in supporting XVIII Corps, and now we have your corps coming."

  "How can we help?"

  "First, you can front-load your deployment with as much support infrastructure as possible. I know you'll want to get your combat units in first. Don't do it."

  As it happened, Franks was planning to send logistics in first, with most combat units to follow. That way the combat units could train as much as possible on the sophisticated training facilities in Germany. Pagonis's advice confirmed that plan.

  "What about ports?"

  "We'll bring you in through Dammam and Jubayl." Dammam and Jubayl were major ports on the Gulf, in northeastern Saudi Arabia. They had recently been upgraded and modernized with U.S. help and advice. As a result, Dammam and Jubayl became world-class seaports. Without them the enormous Coalition deployment would still have been possible, but not in a workable time frame. "I can't emphasize enough," Pagonis went on, "that you need to bring as many HETs as you can from Germany. Otherwise we will have your troops stacked up in ports waiting for trucks. You also need to bring as much tentage and as many cots as you can find. We do not have any for you here. XVIII Corps bought all the Saudis had." HETs — Heavy Equipment Transporters — were used in Saudi Arabia mainly for transporting heavy tracked vehicles the 400 to 500 kilometers from the ports to the Tactical Assembly Areas — TAAs.

  "Right, Gus," Franks replied in closing. "I've got it. Appreciate the advice. Look forward to joining the team and working with you."

  It was a good phone call, Franks thought then, direct, candid, and to the point. In a few minutes he got the picture of what they were up against in this deployment. There were going to be shortages. It was going to be a lean theater, not at all like Germany, with its relatively luxurious logistical base. No use fighting it, he thought. That's the way it is. Deal with it.

  Meanwhile, Gus Pagonis had been direct and forthright, true, but he'd had his own agenda as well. Pagonis was just getting his head above water with XVIII Corps. He was just about able to meet their requirements. And now VII
Corps was coming down from Europe and the States, and he had very little left for them. He couldn't very well go to Gary Luck and ask him to give it back. Meanwhile, VII Corps was leaving a giant warehouse (in Pagonis's view) that was full of material that he could use in theater. And so, as soon as it was announced that VII Corps was going to the Gulf, the first thing he did was put leverage on Franks to bring some of that material down: cots, tents, fuel trucks, tank transporters, and much, much else. It was a normal request.

  Pagonis took his needs to Franks. Other CENTCOM and ARCENT requests were going to Washington to the Department of the Army and the Joint Staff. EUCOM, with USAREUR as the land component, was one source of supply. Yet Saint proved in no way eager to raid all the warehouses of Europe and pull all of his stocks down to where he didn't have enough for his own mission. His mission remained large and CENTCOM had other sources of supply. At that point, CENTCOM was to be the supported command; it was the main U.S. operation in all the world, and General Powell had directed that they could have anything they asked for. What Butch Saint wanted was for Pagonis — and CENTCOM in general — to go to the Department of the Army and the Joint Staff and get them to support the theater. He wanted balance. He wanted Washington to look worldwide and task the Army all over the world to contribute to the Gulf forces, in ways that preserved mission accomplishment. He didn't want USAREUR to be forced to become CENTCOM's automatic supply source, simply because USAREUR was closer to the Gulf than everyone else. He wanted to supply VII Corps, but not the whole theater.

  As it turned out, VII Corps got all the support they needed from Europe. Saint did want VII Corps to succeed, and in truth CENTCOM was unable to supply the corps with what it needed, so in the end Saint and Galvin opened up the caches of Central Europe not only to them, but to the theater. They got not only basic equipment (including, for instance, water trailers from what was once East Germany, now with German markings) but also consumables such as spare parts, ammo, medical supplies, and so on. VII Corps's deployment from Europe took almost double the number of ships than what was originally estimated.

  The conversation with John Yeosock was more wide ranging than the earlier one with Gus Pagonis. Franks and Yeosock were friends and fellow cavalrymen.

  "Fred, welcome to the team," Yeosock said as soon as they were connected on a secure line.

  "John, thanks for calling. Proud to join the team. Bringing a lot of combat power with me. Think I can get an airplane and come down on a leaders' recon on Sunday."

  "That's perfect. We'll set up some briefings and get you around the area. Plan to stay through Wednesday, as the CINC wants a meeting in Dammam down through division commanders."

  "Right, I'll do that," Franks said, then went on to summarize his conversation with General Pagonis.

  "What Gus told you is accurate," Yeosock replied after he'd finished. "We were just about out of the hole with XVIII Corps, and now we are back to square one." And he went on to reinforce Pagonis's emphasis on logistics, especially trucks, tents, and cots, adding that they would also need units in early who could build an infrastructure — rough base camps, sanitation, communication, and the like. The desert was like nothing they were used to, he told him. You had to look hard in the States for anything that harsh and empty. Both men had served in the southwestern desert, at the 3rd CAV at Fort Bliss. But that was a tropical rain forest compared to the Saudi desert, Yeosock said.

  He was exaggerating, but not much. One of the VII Corps troops remarked later that looking around the Saudi desert truly proved God rested on the seventh day.

  "Going in first with logistics makes sense," Franks agreed, "and that is what we'll do. But I know the deployment order is your call" — as commander of Third Army, VII Corps's new next higher command. "What I have in mind is to send the 2nd ACR first for security. Then I'll send infrastructure. I'll have a recommended complete TPFDL for your approval when we come on our leaders' recon."

  The TPFDL — Time Phased Force Deployment List — lays out the order of deployment for each unit to go into a new theater. The commander in theater must approve this schedule before it can be set in motion. That happened early in Franks's visit to Saudi Arabia a few days later.

  "Go with that plan," Yeosock said, "and we can look over your detailed list when you get down here."

  They moved on to other matters.

  "What about assembly areas?" Franks asked. "And any word on employment?" — mission.

  "Right now, I see you to the west of XVIII Corps, with your 2nd ACR maintaining contact on the east with XVIII's 3rd ACR and on the west with the Arab Corps" — with the Arab part of the Coalition armed forces. "Then you can place your divisions behind the 2nd ACR."

  Franks and some of his commanders would look over some of these Tactical Assembly Areas the following week during the leaders' recon.

  "For employment, it is hard to read right now," Yeosock continued. "I suspect we'll get something from the CINC next week. It looks to me like you'll be the main attack and that you'll attack up the Wadi al Batin. You'll head north from Hafar al Batin with the corps deployed from that town east to Al Qaysumah."

  Hafar al Batin is a Saudi town that lies near the junction of the Wadi and the major highway known as the Tapline Road, which runs north and west from the coast in a virtually straight line parallel to the Saudi-Iraq border. The town of Al Qaysumah lies on the Tapline Road about thirty kilometers from Hafar al Batin, and the entire area is approximately four hundred kilometers northwest of the ports on the Gulf coast. At the time, Fred Franks had only the vaguest notion of this geography, and the names he spelled out phonetically — and incorrectly. His ignorance was not destined to last for long.

  "Thanks, John," he said, signing off. "That gives me enough to get the corps moving. See you Sunday night."

  Small moments and not large occasions often wake us to the significance of enormous, earth-rattling changes. At nine A.M. that same morning a group of senior German military leaders and local civilian officials gathered with VII Corps leaders and families next to the VII Corps front gate there at Kelly Barracks. They were there to dedicate a memorial to the end of the Cold War. The twin highlights of the memorial were sections taken from the Berlin Wall and from the Iron Curtain. The piece from Berlin was donated to VII Corps by U.S. Berlin Command; the other piece was donated by the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. There was a small stone patio, a bench, and a brass plaque. It was a modest affair, yet a small but visible reminder of the sacrifice and dedication it took to win America's "longest war."

  The German guests did not know that VII Corps had been ordered to Saudi Arabia. The American attendees, of course, had watched AFN the night before. There was an unusual tension. As Franks looked out at the gathering and began to speak, he was struck by how the monument behind him was a visible sign of one familiar world now gone, and that VII Corps was now a visible sign of a different world whose outlines were not to be so sharp and clear as the one coming to an end. It was the end of one war in one theater under one set of strategic conditions well known to all, and the beginning of a deployment to another theater in another coalition for perhaps another war in a set of strategic conditions just beginning to emerge. There were consequences no one could predict with any probability or certainty. All the signs and symbolism were there. That reflection took all of about ten seconds to flash through Franks's brain as he realized he was neither poet nor philosopher at that moment, but a corps commander who had work to do and not much time for reflection.

  A little later, at the reception, Franks announced to his German friends that the corps was going to the Gulf. At the same time he asked them, as friends, for their help.

  He got it… more help from them and from the rest of the German people than he dreamed possible. The warmth and generosity of the Germans, from government and military officials down to families caring for families, gave splendid evidence of the friendship that had grown out of the long residence of the American army in Germany. Just as importa
nt, the Germans knew what to do and they got things done, efficiently and without complaint. ("We understand better than most what it means to send troops away," some of Franks's older German friends remarked.)

  Later that morning, Franks assembled his new corps team in the command conference room, just upstairs from the secure conference room where they'd done most of their initial planning for the deployment: The 1st and 3rd Armored Division commanders, Ron Griffith and Butch Funk; the regimental commander of the 2nd ACR, Colonel Don Holder; the deputy corps commander, Gene Daniel; the chief of staff, John Landry; and the separate brigade commanders: the 14th MP commander, Rich Pomager; the 93rd Signal Brigade commander, Rich Walsh; the 207th MI Brigade commander, John Smith; the 11th Aviation Brigade commander, Johnnie Hitt; the 7th Engineer Brigade commander, Sam Raines; the 2nd COSCOM (Corps Support Command) commander, Bob McFarlin; the corps artillery commander, Creighton Abrams (son of the former Army Chief); the 7th Personnel Group commander, Jo Rusin; the 7th Finance Group commander, Russ Dowden; plus all of Fred Franks's staff, including the VII Corps base staff.

  Fred Franks picks it up here:

  There was electricity in the air. At the beginning of some meetings, you look around and can tell from body language and lack of energy in small talk that you need to do something dramatic to get everyone's attention. That was not the case today.

  It was an impressive collection of talented and savvy commanders who were now ready to serve the same cause, only on a different continent against a different enemy. The only commander at that meeting from outside the regular corps lineup was Major General Butch Funk, CG 3rd Armored Division, normally assigned to V Corps. Following the two phone calls from Saudi, I had made myself some notes on three-by-five cards, as I did not want to leave anything out of this meeting. It was to be brief, but also important for all of us.

  Attitude was important — mine and theirs. I needed to set the tone of command for this whole operation right from the start. I was pumped up. We had trained hard. We were confident. We were ready. I was sure of that. What I wanted was attention to thoughts we had previously adopted for VII Corps: focus on teamwork, discipline, agility, and skill in fundamentals. I wanted to reinforce the confidence, rapidly build this new team, set the attitude, and issue instructions for training priorities and rough order of deployment.