of that was an inability to plan, let alone decide on a maneuver to allow 1st CAV to pass to the north. The sight of that lone M577 explained to me the difficulty we were having at the VII Corps TAC getting 1st AD on the radio. It also was a signal to me that getting the 1st CAV in the fight that day would be hard to do.
I met Ron behind the M577. The ramp was up (because of the threat of Iraqi artillery fire), but the ramp door was open. I could hear the crackle of reports over the 1st AD command radio net, as the three brigades attacked on line and the aviation attacked deep. The 2/1 Aviation that I had released from 2nd ACR had by now returned to 1st AD… just in time to take up the deep fight from 3/1, whose pilots were by now too fatigued to fly. The full division was committed.
Joining our huddle was Brigadier General Creighton Abrams (there to get the fire support right) and the 1st CAV G-3, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Gunlicks. Also there was the G-3 of the 1st AD, Lieutenant Colonel Tommie Straus.
The discussion went something like this:
'Ron,' I said, 'I want the 1st CAV to be able to attack east toward Objective Raleigh and destroy the Hammurabi. That means — as we talked about earlier — you need to make room in the north of your sector. I've got Jim Gunlicks here and I want you to get the graphics coordinated between you and 1st CAV. John is moving his division up now and will be ready to pass. I want it done prior to dark.'
'Roger, I understand,' Ron said. 'But it would be a lot easier if we got a boundary adjustment in the north rather than for me to try to make my sector smaller right in the middle of our fight with the Medina. We'll give it our best shot.'
'I understand about the boundary, but that will not happen. Get it done by dark. I want to envelop the Iraqis. First CAV is the northern force and the 1st INF is the southern force. Keep pressing your attack.'
'WILCO.'
I had asked a lot of Ron and the 1st AD. They were in a continuous series of battles stretching out about thirty kilometers in front of the division. His forward units were conducting mostly unplanned meeting engagements. We knew generally that the Iraqis were out there, but final locations were determined only when 1st AD troops slammed into them. That required the continuous focus of the division leadership in case forward brigades ran into an enemy force they could not handle, and they needed reinforcement from division. I had ordered Ron to continue that attack. I had also ordered him to make his sector smaller by slightly changing direction, and at the same time to pass 1st CAV to his north. It was a tough mission.
Though Ron was not enthusiastic about all this, that was irrelevant to me. Sometimes you do not get to choose your missions. You execute. So, as a loyal and skilled commander, and one who had his hands full at the moment, Ron had told me he would do it. Ron's WILCO cemented a lifelong friendship between us.
I left and returned to the TAC, which by now had displaced forward and was located just west of where the 2nd ACR had so soundly beaten the Iraqis. I was convinced that within four hours (more or less), Ron and 1st AD would pass 1st CAV through, and we'd have the remaining Iraqis in the bag by late morning the next day. At least in our sector.
1530 VII CORPS TAC CP
The TAC was set up in its usual configuration. The site was a bald, sandy hill (more like a knoll or rise in the desert of maybe fifty feet). Around the site were littered many Iraqi armored vehicles, some burning, some smoking, some just demolished from air attacks.
There also were Iraqi dead (I had not seen any when I was flying in). The next day, our VII Corps chaplain, Colonel Dan Davis — a Special Forces Vietnam veteran, and a troop chaplain if ever there was one — supervised the burial of twenty-eight Iraqi dead and sent the locations back through channels to ARCENT. As was the practice in theater, these would later be passed to the Red Cross.
When I got to the TAC, the first thing I wanted to do was get a quick SITREP on the Iraqi situation and see about the progress of the 1st INF. I also wanted to find out if Stan had found Tom Rhame and delivered the graphics.
Next I reviewed the double envelopment. I knew we could do it. Besides, it looked ever more certain that the final maneuver to finish off the RGFC was up to us. From the information I had received from 1st AD, it appeared that the Third Army two-corps maneuver to finish off the RGFC would not work. XVIII Corps was not going to get east fast enough to become the hammer to our anvil that the Third Corps plan envisioned.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi defense was crumbling. Most of their forces in our sector continued to be east of 1st and 3rd AD, right where I had aimed 1st CAV.
John Tilelli reported that 1st CAV was moving up in anticipation of attacking east. Good! His CAV squadron had an action against a bypassed Iraqi unit.
The Big Red One was continuing its attack to the east and would reach Highway 8 by dark. That was great news. On the other hand, there were a couple of things that I thought I'd have to keep an eye on: First, I noticed that their attack was beginning to take a slight turn to the northeast. With 3rd AD attacking due east, then slightly southeast, if 1st INF started to veer northeast, they would eventually run into each other. Second, we were having trouble keeping effective communications with their TAC. From where we were, the distance was causing us to lose line-of-sight FM comms, and we were relying more and more on TACSAT. On top of that, since Tom Rhame was forward in a tank, to be as close to the action as he could get, I no longer had direct voice comms with him… This was, in fact, no big deal, as Tom knew what I wanted done, and if something wasn't clear, Stan was now at their TAC to explain it in person.
I knew the 1st AD situation, as I had just come from there.
The 3rd AD attack was relentless. They had moved farther and faster, and were picking up momentum. They were the Spearhead Division for sure!
Reports of their actions would tell me two things: First, their lead attacking units were telling us of actions around the 83 to 87 north/south grid line. That told us that the division was about to enter Kuwait, which was the 88 grid. By 1700, they were almost ten kilometers inside Kuwait, and closing in on the direction of attack of the 1st INF. The 3rd AD also continued to report that they were attacking and destroying T-72s and BMPs, as well as bunker complexes, but that the Iraqi resistance seemed less and less organized than it had been earlier in the day (these no longer seemed to be brigade actions, but more battalion- and even company-sized).
I was fired up about their success. Was there something I could do to capitalize on it? An option was to take advantage of their forward progress and attack them northeast in front of 1st AD toward the Hammurabi… No, I concluded. Not yet. If we could not get the 1st CAV around to the north of 1st AD, then I would consider that option.
One thing at a time for now. Keep it simple. Everyone was tired: soldiers and leaders were falling asleep in turrets; planners were having short-term memory lapses; so was I. This was not the time to overcomplicate what we were trying to do.
As I've mentioned before, as soldiers and leaders get more tired, you have to 'work hard' at simplifying, and must communicate in direct, unambiguous language — even get more dramatic in gesture and language to get people's attention.
Since success in the attack always opens up opportunities, you also have to try to reinforce success where you find it — to seize an opening presented by the initiative of one of your subordinate units.
Recognizing success ('exploitation') and totally finishing the enemy ('pursuit') were skills we had not practiced much in our Cold War training because we had always stressed fighting outnumbered against tough enemies in the Warsaw Pact. The last time the American army had been in an exploitation-and-pursuit had been after the Inchon landing behind the North Koreans in September 1950. Some of my early training and education had been conducted by veterans of both World War II and Korea, and somewhere in the back of my mind, the ability to recognize signs of exploitation-and-pursuit on the battlefield had stuck. I had seen them earlier in the day in the 1st INF. Though I hadn't yet seen them in the 1st and 3rd AD, which were still in hasty attacks and meeting engagements, I knew I soon would.
