America's Battalion: Marines in the First Gulf War

12 The First American Ground Action

Major General Mike Myatt, Commanding General, 1st Marine Division During the six months of Operation Desert Shield, our Marines spent a great deal of time studying how the Iraqis ¤ght and looked extensively at the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. We learned that the Iraqi artillery was very effective in trapping Iranian soldiers time and time again in con¤ned areas called “¤re-sacks,” where thousands of Iranians perished. We knew that there were over 1,200 artillery pieces belonging to the Iraqi divisions facing the 1st Marine Division. In our studies of the two obstacle belts in Kuwait and the positioning of the Iraqi artillery, we concluded that the Iraqis were planning on trapping us in at least two ¤re-sacks when we attacked. We also recognized that there wasn’t enough ordnance in the aviators’ inventory to destroy all that artillery during the ¤rst phase of Desert Storm. So we designed a series of ambushes [combined arms raids] to defeat the Iraqis before we ever attacked into Kuwait [emphasis here is Myatt’s]. Colonel John Admire, CO, Task Force Taro In response to the allied air campaign, the Iraqi army conducted supporting arms attacks into Saudi Arabia. As the most forward-deployed United States combat unit, Task Force Taro initiated the ¤rst ground-oriented attacks against Iraqi positions in Kuwait by conducting an artillery raid on 20– 21 January. Arab coalition force observers were invited to participate, and subsequent American Marine instruction and rehearsals with the Arabs pre12 / The First American Ground Action The Artillery Raids pared them for the conduct of similar such raids. Thereafter, artillery raids and border skirmishes were conducted randomly and frequently. Captain Joseph Molofsky, Liaison to the Saudi Brigade Colonel Admire called me up and asked me to coordinate a passage of lines for artillery batteries to move through the Saudi defensive screen and move up just south of the border. So I did that. I took a couple of Saudi of¤cers with me for them to get the experience with artillery raids, because they expressed an interest in doing the same thing once it worked out. Colonel John Garrett, Battalion Commander Our mission on the raids was to move the artillery up about twenty or thirty clicks from where it was. We provided ®ank security for that. All I had for my guys to ride was trucks, so we got the Qataris and they came with us in their Renault APCs. They would have an English-speaking of¤cer or two with each APC. We’d put my Dragons in a truck and we’d have those APCs in front. Major Joseph D. “Dan” Stansbury, Battalion Operations Officer The artillery raids were somewhat disconcerting to me initially, because we had to break apart the battalion to make a task-organized artillery raid force. I did not have a good feeling about what they would do if they were engaged in indirect ¤re, if they were going to be able to extract themselves. My job was to make sure that they had plans so if they got ¤red on by indirect ¤re that they would pull out. I was concerned that they would run into a mechanized force with artillery pieces and TOWs and heavy machine guns. They were very mobile but vulnerable to any type of tank or heavy mech attack. One raid had a combined Qatari-Marine security force. We were in Qatari personnel carriers. At night, confusion between friend and foe was a potential problem. There were Saudi national guard personnel driving up and down the main road. U.S. personnel were driving up and down the MSR [main supply route], and personnel in Khafji providing intelligence to higher headquarters. U.S. advisors were going up and down the road with headlights on at 0300. We had to stop all these vehicles, because that was our job—to make sure no in¤ltrators got down the road. First American Ground Action 85 Staff Sergeant Don Gallagher, Platoon Sergeant, Weapons Company On the artillery raids we sat out there as security while the artillery ¤red off their mission. We’d heard that the Iraqi artillery outnumbered us four to one. Then our artillery guys told us that if they found us, they could take out the whole grid square. This was not good. It made us pretty jumpy. Captain Joseph Molofsky, Liaison to the Saudi Brigade On one...