19 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, AAR; 173rd Airborne Brigade, Dak To, AAR; PUC; 4th Infantry Division, G3 Air, AAR, all at National Archives; Scott, “Battle for Hill 875,” USAMHI; Combat Zone: Hill 875; Clarence Johnson, interview with the author, February 1, 2008; Steer, “True Valor at Hill 875,” pp. 43-44; Lawrence Okendo, Sky Soldier: Battles of Dak To (self-published, 1988), pp. 107-08; Atkinson, Long Gray Line, pp. 248-50; Murphy, Dak To, pp. 272-82; Maitland and McInerney, Contagion of War, pp. 180-81. As of this writing, the identity of the pilot and plane that made the tragic mistake at Hill 875 is still not definite. 2nd Battalion records claim that F-100 Super Sabres and A-1Es provided the close air support that day, indicating that the Air Force was responsible. Other accounts claim that the plane was a Marine jet. Because there is still no certainty over this, I felt that my account should reflect that. In the summer of 2008, while researching the friendly fire bombing at the National Archives, I met Joe Nigro, a Vietnam veteran and retired police officer who is also investigating the incident, but without definitive information. For the sake of closure for the veterans, he is hoping to find the elusive answers.
20 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, AAR; 173rd Airborne Brigade, Dak To, AAR; PUC, all at National Archives; Captain Ron Leonard, oral history, Vietnam Company Command Oral History, Box 21, Folder 8 (Leonard commanded Bravo Company); Scott, “Battle for Hill 875,” both at USAMHI; Combat Zone: Hill 875; 4th Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Battle of Dak To, Hill 875, AAR, copy in author’s possession; Johnson interview; Rocky Stone, e-mails to author, January 8 and 10, 2008; Murphy, Dak To, pp. 277-94.
21 173rd Airborne Brigade, Dak To, AAR; PUC, National Archives; 4th Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Hill 875, AAR; Scott, “Battle for Hill 875,” USAMHI; Connolly, Morse interviews; Stone, e-mails to author, January 8 and 10, 2008; Murphy, Dak To, pp. 298-03; Maitland and McInerney, Contagion of War, p. 182.
22 4th Infantry Division, AAR; 173rd Airborne Brigade, Dak To, AAR; PUC, all at National Archives; Scott, “Battle for Hill 875”; Leonard, Peers, oral histories, all at USAMHI; 4th Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Hill 875, AAR; Connolly, Morse, Tanner interviews; Tanner, unpublished memoir, pp. 75-77; Stone, e-mails to author, January 8, 10, and 12, 2008; Murphy, Dak To, pp. 304-11; Maitland and McInerney, Contagion of War, p. 182.
23 4th Infantry Division, AAR; 173rd Airborne Brigade, Dak To, AAR; PUC, all at National Archives; Scott, “Battle for Hill 875”; Leonard, oral history, both at USAMHI; 4th Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Hill 875, AAR; George Wilkins, interview with the author, March 10, 2008; Larry Cousins, interview with the author, February 26, 2008; Hal Birch to the author, March 14 and May 4, 2008 (Birch was the commander of 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry); Connolly, Tanner interviews; Tanner, unpublished memoir, pp. 83-87; Stone, e-mails to author, January 10 and 12, 2008; Al Undiemi, e-mail to author, January 11, 2008; “Dak To: The Battle for Hill 875, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division,” after action report and firsthand accounts compiled by Roger Hill, copy in author’s possession, courtesy of Mr. Hill; Murphy, Dak To, pp. 315-20; Maitland and McInerney, Contagion of War, pp. 182-83.
24 Public Statements of General William Westmoreland, RG 472, Box 42, Folder 1; General William Westmoreland, National Press Club, Q&A, November 21, 1967, Box 32, Folder 4, both in Records of the Office of the Chief of Military History, William Westmoreland Papers; 4th Infantry Division, AAR; G3 Air, AAR; Division Artillery, AAR; Peers Briefing; Outline and Statistical Summary; 173rd Airborne Brigade, Dak To, AAR; PUC, all at National Archives; Scott, “Battle for Hill 875”; Leonard, Peers, oral histories, all at USAMHI; 4th Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Hill 875, AAR; Bill Ballard, interview with the author, January 22, 2008; Tanner, Morse, Connolly, Wilkins, Cousins interviews; Tanner, unpublished memoir, pp. 88-89; Dennis Lewallen, e-mail to author, January 9, 2008; Hill, “Dak To: Battle for Hill 875”; Birch to author, May 4, 2008; Stone, e-mails to author, January 8, 10, and 12, 2008; Undiemi, e-mail to author, January 11, 2008; Major George P. Long, S3, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, “Battle for Dak To,” pp. 41-43, in Lieutenant Colonel Albert Garland, A Distant Challenge: The U.S. Infantryman in Vietnam (New York: Jove Books, 1983); Murphy, Dak To, pp. 321-32; Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, pp. 238-39; Maitland and McInerney, Contagion of War, pp. 182-83. Rocky Stone was one of the men who adamantly opposed the turkey dinner as an insult to the memory of dead comrades. For the next forty years, he had trouble even eating turkey, much less sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with his family. After the passage of several decades, he could finally bring himself to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal with the family, but he insisted that they eat ham.
Chapter 8
1 United States General Accounting Office, “Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Commerce, House of Representatives: Operation Desert Storm, Evaluation of the Air Campaign,” pp. 19-41 (June 1997); Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Bolger, “What Happened at Khafji: Learning the Wrong Lesson,” paper prepared for the Army War College, United States Army Military History Institute (USAMHI), Carlisle, PA; Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), pp. 227-28; Alex Vernon, Most Succinctly Bred (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006), p. 44; Adrian Lewis, The American Culture of War: The History of U.S. Military Forces from World War II Through Operation Iraqi Freedom (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 367-74; Stephen Bourque, Jayhawk! The VII Corps in the Persian Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 2002), p. 455; Richard Hallion, Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), p. 1. For a reasonably balanced, albeit slightly air-centric look at air power in the war, see Lieutenant Colonel Jerome Martin, “Victory from Above: Air Power Theory and the Conduct of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.” As of this writing, Bolger is a two-star general in command of the 1st Cavalry Division.
2 Robert Scales, Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Staff, United States Army, 1993), pp. 15-36; William Hartzog, American Military Heritage (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2001), pp. 220-24; Frank Shubert and Theresa Krauss, general eds., The Whirlwind War: The United States Army in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2001), pp. 208-15; Allan Millett, Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps (New York: Free Press, 1991), pp. 644-52. For a close look at what the transformation to an all-volunteer force was like in one mechanized infantry unit, see my own The 7th Infantry Regiment: Combat in an Age of Terror, the Korean War Through the Present (New York: Forge, 2008), pp. 170-74.
3 U.S. Army Field Manual 3-21.71, “Mechanized Infantry Platoon and Squad (Bradley), available on www.globalsecurity.org; Kurt Dabb, rifleman, Alpha 2-7 Infantry, Desert Storm, interview with the author, June 13, 2001; Rick Averna, commander, Charlie 2-7 Infantry, Desert Storm, interview with the author, June 25, 2001; Bradley Fighting Vehicle, personal knowledge; Daniel Bolger, Death Ground: Today’s American Infantry in Battle (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1999), pp. 126-29.
4 Colonel Michael Krause, Ph.D., “The Battle of 73 Easting, 26 February 1991”; 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, After Action Report (AAR), Gulf War Collection, Box 1, Folder 5, both at USAMHI; Richard Bohannon, “Dragon’s Roar: 1-37 Armor in the Battle of 73 Easting,” Armor, May-June 1992, pp. 11-17; Daniel Davis, “2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of 73 Easting,” Field Artillery, April 1992, pp. 48-53; Vince Crowley, “Ghost Troop’s Battle at 73 Easting,” Armor, May-June 1991, pp. 7-12; Douglas Macgregor, Warrior’s Rage: The Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009), pp. 139-81. Macgregor was S3 of Cougar Squadron, the parent unit for both Eagle and Ghost Troops; Alberto Bin, Richard Hill, and Archer Jones, Desert Storm: A Forgotten War (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), pp. 193-99; Thomas Houlahan, Gulf War: The Com
plete History (New London, NH: Schrenker Military Publishing, 1999), pp. 325-32; Atkinson, Crusade!, pp. 441-48; Scales, Certain Victory, pp. 1-5; Bourque, Jayhawk!, pp. 325-31. McMaster holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina and is a leading scholar on the American war in Vietnam. As of this writing, he is a brigadier general with a distinguished record of combat command, not just in the Gulf War but in the Iraq War as well.
5 Father (Captain) David Kenehan, personal diary, February 26-27, 1991, Box 1, Folder 1, David Kenehan Papers; Lieutenant Colonel James Hillman, “Task Force 1-41 Infantry: Fratricide Experience in Southwest Asia,” Army War College Paper; “1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division Desert Shield/Desert Storm History,” all at USAMHI; Captain Douglas Robbins, “Operation Desert Storm: Battle of Norfolk, Scout Platoon, Task Force 5-16, 1ID”; First Lieutenant Donald Murray, “Desert Storm Monograph”; Captain James Petro, “Operations of the 5th Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment (1st Infantry Division) During Breaching Operations of the Iraqi Main Defenses, 24-28 February 1991,” all at Donovan Library, Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia; John S. Brown, “Desert Reckoning: Historical Continuities and the Battle for Norfolk, 1991,” U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI; Colonel Lon Maggart, “A Leap of Faith,” Armor, January-February 1992, pp. 24-32; Steve Vogel, “‘Fast and Hard’: The Big Red One’s Race Through Iraq,” Army Times, March 25, 1991, pp. 2, 13; “Hell Night: For the Second Armored Division It Was No Clean War,” Army Times, October 7, 1991, pp. 8, 14-18, 24, 69; Scott Rutter, commander, Charlie 2-16 Infantry, Desert Storm, interview with the author, February 10, 2008; Houlahan, Gulf War, pp. 333-54; Scales, Certain Victory, pp. 276-84; Bourque, Jayhawk! , pp. 331-37. Houlahan’s study is particularly strong on the fratricide incidents. Rutter was not in the Norfolk battle, but his perspective as an infantry company commander in the same division enhanced my understanding of the battle.
6 Captain Daniel Stempniak, “The Battle of the Al Mutlaa Police Post, 26 February, 1991,” Donovan Library, copy in author’s possession, courtesy of Ms. Genoa Stanford; J. Paul Scicchitano, “Eye of the Tiger,” Army Times, June 10, 1991, pp. 18, 61; Stephen Bourque and John Burdan, “A Nervous Night on the Basrah Road,” Military History Quarterly, Autumn 1999, pp. 88-97; Al Santoli, ed., Leading the Way: How Vietnam Veterans Rebuilt the U.S. Military, an Oral History (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993), pp. 337-39; Richard Swain, “Lucky War”: Third Army in Desert Storm (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 1997), p. 265; Bolger, Death Ground, pp. 118-52.
7 Lieutenant Colonel John Garrett, CO, and Major Craig Huddleston, XO, interview with Lieutenant Colonel Charles Cureton, March 5, 1991, Box 170, Folder 3; Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Hannigan, CO, and Major Brad Washabaugh, S3, interview with Lieutenant Colonel Charles Cureton, March 5, 1991, Box 170, Folder 4; Task Force Ripper, group interview with Lieutenant Colonel Charles Cureton, March 11, 1991, Box 165, Folder 7; Task Force Papa Bear, combat engineers, interview with Lieutenant Colonel Charles Cureton, no date, Box 165, Folder 15, all at oral history collection, U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division, Quantico, VA; John Admire, “The 3rd Marines in Desert Storm,” Marine Corps Gazette, September 1991, pp. 69-71; Major General Michael Myatt, “Close Air Support and Fire Support in Desert Shield and Desert Storm,” Marine Corps Gazette, May 1998, pp. 72-73; Staff Sergeant Lee Tibbetts, “Squad Leader Awarded Medal for Gallantry,” Marines, March 1992, pp. 23-24; Otto Kreisher, “Marines’ Minefield Assault,” Military History Quarterly, Summer 2002, pp. 6-15; Otto Lehrack, ed., America’s Battalion: Marines in the First Gulf War (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2005), pp. 168-95; Bin et al., Desert Storm, pp. 159, 165-71; Santoli, Leading the Way, pp. 322-26.
8 Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hancock, personal narrative, Frank Hancock Papers, Box 1, Folder 2; Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hancock, “North to the Euphrates: Part One, the Taking of Cobra,” Army War College Paper; Colonel Tom Hill, 1st Brigade, 101st Air Assault Division AAR, Gulf War Collection, Box 1, Folder 6, all at USAMHI; Captain Mark Esper, “The Screaming Eagles of Desert Storm,” Donovan Library; Sean Naylor, “Flight of Eagles: The 101st Airborne Division’s Raids into Iraq,” Army Times, July 22, 1991, p. 14; Lieutenant General Edward Flanagan, Lightning: The 101st in the Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994), pp. 165-201; Thomas Taylor, Lightning in the Storm: The 101st Air Assault Division in the Gulf War (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994), pp. 305-79; Houlahan, Gulf War, pp. 241-51; Santoli, Leading the Way, pp. 332-33; Bolger, Death Ground, pp. 75-97.
9 Bolger, “What Happened at Khafji,” Army War College Paper, USAMHI; Lewis, The American Culture of War, pp. 374, 386-91. Modern insurgent groups have often employed jungles and mountains quite effectively. Usually, they only come to power, though, when they seize control of cities or waterways. Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolutionary movement and the Viet Cong are classic examples of this.
Chapter 9
1 Owen West, “Dispatches from Fallujah,” July 30, 2004, www.slate.com. Most of this passage is derived from a mixture of common knowledge and my own opinion. The Cheney quote is at www.wikiquote.com. The best single book on the planning and initial execution of the Iraq War is Tom Ricks’s Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006). The Schwarzkopf quote is from page 83 of that book.
2 Gunnery Sergeant Mark Oliva, “Shutting Down Fallujah,” Leatherneck, June 2004, p. 18; Jonathan Keiler, “Who Won the Battle of Fallujah?” Naval Institute Proceedings , January 2005, pp. 1-2; Bing West, No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah (New York: Bantam Books, 2005), pp. 26-63; David Danelo, Blood Stripes: The Grunt’s View of the War in Iraq (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2006), pp. 88-90; Robert Kaplan, Imperial Grunts (New York: Vintage, 2005), pp. 345-48. Like most religions, Islam also forbids the mutilation of bodies. At the prodding of the Americans, Fallujah’s sheiks, imams, and elders publicly condemned the mutilations, but they refused to denounce the terrorists in their midst. This reflected popular opinion in Fallujah, which was quite anti-American and, at this point, supportive of the insurgents.
3 Eric Schmitt, “Marines Battle Guerrillas in Streets of Fallujah,” New York Times, April 9, 2004; Sergeants Earl Catagnus, Jr. & Brad Edison & Lance Corporals James Keeling & David Moon, “Infantry Squad Tactics: Some of the Lessons Learned During MOUT in the Battle for Fallujah,” Marine Corps Gazette, September 2005, pp. 80-82; Ross Simpson, “Fallujah: A Four-Letter Word,” Leatherneck, February 2005, pp. 16-19; Captain Michael Skaggs, “Tank-Infantry Integration,” Marine Corps Gazette, June 2005, pp. 41-42; Patrick Finnigan, interview with the author, February 23, 2008; West, No True Glory, pp. 63-68; Kaplan, Imperial Grunts, pp. 360-66. Several years after being wounded in Fallujah, Finnigan was still finding fragments in his body. I told him that I knew many World War II veterans who still had pieces in their bodies sixty years after the fact.
4 Bing West, “The Road to Haditha,” Atlantic Monthly, October 2006; Christine Hauser, “War Reports from Civilians Stir up Iraqis against U.S.,” New York Times, April 14, 2004; Christine Hauser and Jeff Warzer, “Siege Defined on Stones Set in Haste in the Dirt,” New York Times, April 28, 2004; Edward Wong, “Battle for Fallujah Rouses the Anger of Iraqis Weary of the U.S. Occupation,” New York Times, April 22, 2004; John Burns, “U.S. Pummels Rebel Positions as Fierce Clash Shakes Fallujah,” New York Times, April 28, 2004; Ilario Pantano with Malcolm McConnell, Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy (New York: Threshold Editions, 2006), pp. 197-99; West, No True Glory, pp. 68-73, 90-93, 118-21.
5 Ross Simpson, “In the Crosshairs: USMC Snipers in Iraq,” Leatherneck, June 2004, pp. 24, 27; Jeffrey Gettleman, “Marines in Fallujah Still Face and Return Relentless Fire,” New York Times, April 14, 2004; Finnegan interview; Milo Afong, Hogs in the Shadows: Combat Stories from Marine Snipers in Iraq (New York: Berkley Caliber, 2007), pp. 98-112; West, No True Glory, pp. 172-77. For a good discussion of the moral struggle inherent in sniping, see Dave Grossma
n, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996), pp. 108-10, 254-55. For his effective sniping, Finnigan earned a Navy Commendation Medal with a Combat “V” for Valor.
6 Adnan Khan, “After the Siege,” McLean’s, May 17, 2004; Paul Quinn-Judge, “Life on the Front Lines,” Time, May 10, 2004; Finnigan interview; Pantano, Warlord, pp. 199, 232; Kaplan, Imperial Grunts, pp. 368-69; Afong, Hogs in the Shadows, pp. 111-12; West, No True Glory, pp. 208-25. Bellon was a high school classmate and football teammate of mine at Chaminade College Preparatory in St. Louis.
7 Lieutenant Colonel Willard Buhl, interview with Captain Steven “Joe” Winslow, October 28, 2004, declassified oral history at U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division (USMCHMD), Quantico, VA; Lieutenant Colonel Dave Bellon to Dad, November 8, 2004, originally posted at www.thegreenzone.com, copy in author’s possession; Gunnery Sergeant Matt Hevezi, “‘Battle for Fallujah: They’ve Chosen a Path of Violence,’” Leatherneck, December 2005, pp. 40-42; Lieutenant General John Sattler and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Wilson, “Operation Al Fajr: The Battle of Fallujah, Part II,” Marine Corps Gazette, July 2005, pp. 12-14; Keiler, “Who Won the Battle of Fallujah?”; “The Battle for Fallujah,” at www.talkingproud.us; Donald Wright and Timothy Reese, On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign, the United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003-January 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008), pp. 345-51; West, No True Glory, pp. 227-32.
8 Major General Richard Natonski, interview with Lieutenant Colonel John Way, March 16, 2005; Colonel Craig Tucker, interview with Major Steven “Joe” Winslow, August 11, 2006; Lieutenant General John Sattler, interview with Lieutenant Colonel John Way, April 8, 2005; Buhl interview, all at USMCHMD; Keiler, “Who Won the Battle of Fallujah?”; “Battle for Fallujah,” at www.talkingproud.us; Kendall Gott, ed., Eyewitness to War, Volume I: The U.S. Army in Operation Al Fajr, an Oral History (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007), pp. 4-8, 159; West, No True Glory, pp. 250-60. By the time of the Tucker interview, Winslow had been promoted to major.
Grunts: Inside the American Infantry Combat Experience, World War II Through Iraq Page 63