Desert Storm began 25 years ago today

[DeHavilland]

Twenty-five years ago today, I found myself in the Saudi Arabian desert near the Iraqi border with NVG's on watching a steady stream of traffic headed northbound and downtown.  It was a very impressive sight.  I mentioned this in the office today and guys were amazed that it was 25 years ago.  Of course some said they were in grade school then so I gave them a quick history lesson.

[stract]

my memory of DS: I was 10, and remember going to a gym for basketball practice, skipping onto the court, singing "We're at waaaarrrrr, we're at waaarrrrr."  Little did I know...

 

Edited January 17, 2016 by stract
spel

[Clark Griswold]

Foxtrot Alpha has a wrap up of the numbers and a short CBS interview with Sec. Powell 

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/operation-desert-storm-by-the-numbers-on-its-25th-anniv-1753347671

25 years, probably 3+ trillion dollars spent, 6000+ KIAs & 250k+ WIAs, let's get to some point we can call it good (whatever that is) and only engage there when either Israel is about to be overrun or the oil supply is about to be cut off.  Somehow Europe, Japan, China, etc... buy oil and don't have a huge military footprint there, we can do the same... 

[17D_guy]

My Dad had already been gone for months, and this kicked off in the news.  As a little tyke I didn't really think too much more of it than that's where "something" is happening.  Though, that's not where my Dad was.  I was wrong, and it pretty much jacked the family up forever.

War sucks.

[herkbum]

Damn, I feel old around you guys. I was in college when this went down.

[HuggyU2]

We stayed up late that night, and watched a gazillion F-111's taxi and takeoff in waves from Taif.  What a sight.  

I had to launch a few hours later, but there was no way I could sleep.  I was keyed up as I was 6 weeks into my first U-2 deployment.  

That was quite a memorable flight.  

[Prosuper]

I was a C-137 FCC in the 89th MAW then, just got back from Geneva with SEC State James Baker to give diplomacy one last chance, got back to my apartment to watch Bernard Shaw report live from Baghdad when the bombing started. 

[HerkFE]

The war kicked off 2 days prior to my 21st birthday. I was a young squid on the USS Saratoga with just over two years in the Navy. We had deployed from Mayport, Florida on August 7, 1990...five days after Saddam invaded Kuwait. At the start of the fight, we should have been making our way home from our regularly scheduled six month deployment. We were still in the Red Sea ten days after the ceasefire when we were finally able to point toward the Suez Canal and begin making our way home. We lost one plane on the initial strike...Scott Speicher. Seems like we lost a plane a day for the first 3 or 4 days of the campaign.  Several of our guys were paraded before the cameras. Jeffrey Zaun was one of the more memorable ones.  Little did I know at that time but the next 21 years of my 23 year military career would be dominated by the fallout from that campaign. 

[HerkPerfMan]

Air Force Magazine posted this cool photo album from Desert Storm. The Official Air Force Page on Flickr also had a larger Desert Storm album...but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

https://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2016/January%202016/Desert-Storm-in-25-Photos.aspx

[bennynova]

17 hours ago, 17D_guy said:

My Dad had already been gone for months, and this kicked off in the news.  As a little tyke I didn't really think too much more of it than that's where "something" is happening.  Though, that's not where my Dad was.  I was wrong, and it pretty much jacked the family up forever.

War sucks.

What were you wrong about?

  Did you being wrong mess your family up?

[MKopack]

Twenty-five years ago today ET Tullia jumped into F-16C, 87-0229, and flew to Baghdad. Package Q, it was a wild ride...

 

https://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2016/January%202016/Package-Q.aspx

[TreeA10]

I was stationed at Eielson and we were packed and ready to go as filler for expected losses.  Our Intel officer had it all mapped out so we saw the big movement of ground troops positioning for the end around hook and we knew when the shooting was going to start.  So, there I was...... in North Pole, AK...... on my roof shoveling 12 feet of snow.......when the shooting started.  Damn.

[17D_guy]

On 1/18/2016 at 9:30 AM, bennynova said:

What were you wrong about?

  Did you being wrong mess your family up?

Dad was there is what I was wrong about.  He was Navy, so... I just didn't put it together being that young that the Marines had to get carried there somehow.  My being wrong didn't jack stuff up, him being gone and a whole host of other things did.  

[Stitch]

On 1/17/2016 at 3:01 PM, herkbum said:

Damn, I feel old around you guys. I was in college when this went down.

Was at my 4th base, Nellis, working as a SSgt weapons load crew chief on the then brand new Strike Eagle. Didn't get invited to the "party".  Tried to volunteer to go over but was told we were more "valuable" getting crews spun up for deployment.  That would be our best contribution to the war effort.  Looking back at the big picture now I get that, but was pretty pissed off about it at the time.       

[Lawman]

One of our pilots was talking about with the rest of us today about being here as an Ordnance guy in an A-10 squadron.

Mind blowing to think about the scenario he described of literal tens of thousands of pounds of ordnance sitting ready on every pad to keep sorties cycling at max pace and then having what he described as the two dumbest statements he ever heard.

1. "Check it out they are test firing patriots."

Apparently they realized what was going on after the seventh one went up and exploded and moved to the bunkers.

Followed later by

2. "Go out and check the pads for burning debris"

.... You know next to the tens of thousands of lbs of bombs on each parking space on the flight line and not in the AHA.

Though I particular liked him remarking how he told himself after DS he would never go back to that gawd forsaken crap hole again... Then spent a good portion of his adult life there as an Army warrant pilot.

[MKopack]

Here's an example of how times have changed: In late August of '90, when the diplomats had worked out all of the technicalities, our Vice Wing Commander was alerted that he'd lead one of our squadrons to Qatar.

"Good. Where is Qatar?"

It took several hours to to come up with official charts, but during that time they had planned out the deployment using National Geographic maps that he had in the office. When we arrived we were the first US military to ever deploy to the country - and the tallest building in the country was the pyramid shaped Doha Sheraton on the bay.

Edited January 22, 2016 by MKopack