Corps CSM job after my CSM had abruptly left in late January, but he had declined. He was honored that I'd thought of him, he told me, but if it was all the same to me, he figured he could do the corps and the 3rd AD more good by staying in 3rd AD, considering they had been last into the theater. Unusual — but Joe T was a real soldier.
I was always glad to see Butch Funk. Butch has a soldier's heart, and I just flat-out trusted him. He also always told me exactly what was on his mind without any hidden agendas, and much of the time, he and I communicated without words. Later, he himself said pretty much the same thing: 'I could tell from your voice what you wanted,' he told me, 'and of course, the shorthand of our common background — and, I daresay, kindred spirits — really helped. I always felt comfortable being candid with you, even though I may not be right. That sort of confidence in one's boss, I have found, is very rare.'
He had every reason to feel good about the 3rd AD that morning. In the last twenty-four hours, he had gotten an order from me to turn right ninety degrees, pass around the 2nd ACR, and attack east, destroying the RGFC in his sector. He had coordinated with the 2nd ACR, made his own order, then disseminated it, maneuvered his 8,000-plus vehicle division into two brigades up and one back (from the division wedge they had been in), passed around the 2nd ACR, turned right, linked up the 42nd Artillery Brigade with their division artillery, and fought all day and all night. They were still fighting. He had maneuvered and fought his division about eighty kilometers in twenty-four hours, and had extended the fight a good thirty kilometers ahead of his tank forces with close air and his own attack helos. Early that morning, he had passed his third brigade through his second brigade to maintain the momentum of attack. The 3rd AD had driven the spearhead right through the best the Iraqis had. And they were still doing it.
After I told Butch what I was trying to get done that day, he clearly understood what I was telling him, and he even thought of a few ways the 3rd AD might be able to help. (They looked at an option later that day that I had not considered. It proposed attacking from south to north in front of the 1st AD and behind and into the flank of the Hammurabi, just in case the 1st CAV maneuver did not work. This would have worked if we'd had time.)
As a result, he so paced the tempo of his division attack that day that to the Iraqis they were a relentless, moving, thirty- to forty-kilometer-long-by-thirty-kilometer-wide armored death zone. He gave them no rest. He had them fixed and was now going to finish them. I added an attack helicopter battalion from the 11th Aviation Brigade to the 3rd AD to give them additional fresh combat power and to keep extending their zone deep.
'Butch, give me a SITREP,' I said after I explained my intent.
We were leaning over the top of a HMMWV, and he was pointing to a portable map he had unfolded on the hood top. Butch showed me on the map where his units were, explained that he had decided to pass his third brigade through his second brigade, then described the fighting the night before. It had been a series of hasty attacks, he told me, but with stiffening resistance the farther east they went. As they had done elsewhere, the Iraqis had tried reverse-slope defenses, but ground and air reconnaissance and quick-reacting small-unit leaders had overcome this tactical adjustment. They also were running into elements of many divisions, confirming that this was a hasty defense. He even related that at places the 10th Iraqi Armored seemed to have abandoned their equipment and fled.
By now, he went on, he thought 3rd AD had defeated the RGFC in their zone and were into other forces that had been positioned in depth, or were just trying to get out of the theater. But he was clear that 3rd AD was still conducting hasty attacks and were not in any pursuit. Not yet. But soon.
Before I left, he and I shared a few lighter moments. It was a relaxed, yet intensely focused mood we all were in. It was good to loosen up with the welcome Diet Coke Butch handed me, and Joe T. Hill gave me some equipment he had gotten from an abandoned Iraqi bunker. There was an RGFC uniform shirt complete with red shoulder cord, a brand-new Iraqi helmet (which we all signed later and gave to Army Chief Carl Vuono), and a field phone that also looked brand new. And we had a good laugh as Joe T acted out for us (in his Georgia accent) the likely Iraqi conversations as the Spearhead Division slammed into their positions in the middle of the night… It was soldier humor while the battles continued all around us, but also a deeper indicator: We knew by now that the outcome was not in doubt. It was just a matter of how much longer and at what cost.
I left Butch and flew to meet Ron Griffith. Navigation to the 1st AD was always a challenge because of their LORAN, since the rest of the corps mainly used GPS. They weren't trying to be different. They used what we could get. We just did not have enough GPS. As we lifted off from 3rd AD TAC and Mark turned the Blackhawk to head north to find the 1st AD, we could clearly see Spearhead Bradleys and tanks firing at the Iraqis.
0815 1ST AD TAC CP
My positive feelings changed abruptly when I saw the 1st AD TAC in the middle of what appeared to be a stopped division. I was quick off the Blackhawk to find out what was going on.
Ron probably could read my mind as he greeted me. 'I know you want us to continue the attack,' he said, 'but I'm just about out of fuel. I figure we have about another two hours, then the division will come to a complete halt. What killed us was the 75th Arty Brigade showed up almost out of fuel, and we had to refuel them.' Friction.
'Shit,' I said. 'Damn it, we just have to keep moving, and I'll get you fuel from somewhere. Just keep attacking like you've been doing.'
Very quickly, I went over to the 1st AD comms and called the TAC. 'Get hold of Gene Daniel,' I told them, 'and get some fuel to the 1st AD. Top priority over anything else.' I also ordered the 3rd AD to send some fuel to the north to 1st AD.
For a brief time, I was thinking that the worst sin for an armored corps would be to run out of fuel. We had made many logistics arrangements to prevent it, yet we were in danger of it anyway. Stopping because you are out of fuel is a fatal flaw, and to run out of fuel here, on top of the world's greatest supply of oil, was just too much.
The 1st AD had come farther than any other unit in the corps, and out of all the divisions had the most vehicles. They and the corps transportation units had been busting their butts to get to this point. But they were using about 500,000 to 750,000 gallons of fuel a day; and that is a lot of fuel trucks, especially when each one carries 2,500 or 5,000 gallons, and the turnaround time from corps fuel sites was by now twenty-four hours or greater. As an order of magnitude comparison, in Normandy in late August 1944, when there were eighteen divisions in the U.S. Third and First Armies, their total daily fuel consumption had been 850,000 gallons. For eighteen divisions! Ron's 1st AD used almost that much by themselves! It was no small deal.
I was not happy with this situation. It almost cost us. From that day forward, I would tell military and other audiences, 'Forget logistics and you lose.'
Our choices were really two. One was to stop the division and pass the 1st CAV through to take up the fight, a maneuver that would probably take us the rest of the day and well into the night. The end result: no pressure on the Iraqis for twelve hours or so. The alternative was for Ron to keep attacking and take the risk that the tankers would catch up and he would be able to sustain the momentum. We did not discuss these options. I ordered Ron to keep moving. I was counting on my logisticians.
Meanwhile (though I did not yet know this), the 3rd AD had learned even before I had of the 1st AD fuel situation; as a stopgap measure — on their own initiative, in a superb feat of teamwork — they had sent twenty HEMMT fuelers, each with 2,500 gallons, north to their flank division. This turned out to be the shot in the fuel tanks that 1st AD needed. Later, more fuel caught up, mainly due to the great efforts of the 1st AD logisticians and their ADC for support, Brigadier General Jarrett Robertson, a cavalryman and ex-commander of the 3rd CAV. Jarrett was aware of the situation in 1st AD and had already moved out to keep the momentum going. Likewise, Colonel Chuck Mahan, commander of 7th ASG, the VII Corps logistics unit that was assigned responsibility to support 1st AD and VII Corps units in that part of the battlefield, had gotten a helicopter from Ron and was scouring the desert LOC from 1st AD back to Nelligen for fuel tankers.
In other words, the solution to this mini-crisis had been under way before I got into it. The units and commanders knew my intent, felt a tight teamwork, and had gone ahead and worked the problem and were well on the way to solving it. However, by establishing priorities, I could focus greater awareness of the urgency of the situation at the VII Corps rear and get them into it faster. Delivery of the fuel was the result of 'brute force' logistics and a lot of fast-moving, long columns of tankers through the desert. (I later awarded a Bronze Star to Captain
