needed. She and her staff (together with corps AG Lieutenant Colonel Eugenia Thornton) were meticulous in maintaining accountability and the records of those VII Corps soldiers killed in action, who died as a result of disease and non-battle injury, were wounded in action, and injured as a result of non-battle causes. Later the 7th was timely and thorough in reporting to Third Army the circumstances of soldier deaths caused by fratricide.
• The 7th Finance Group, commanded by Colonel Russ Dowden, whose soldiers kept track of the myriad details of wartime finance so important to soldiers and families of VII Corps, many of whom had joined the Corps only recently. It was no small task and they did it superbly.
• Lieutenant Colonel Larry Dogden's Air Defense TF 8/43 moved with the VII Corps, providing an umbrella from Iraqi tactical missile attack or helicopter attack (CENTAF had earlier established air supremacy against Iraqi fixed-wing attack). At one point I told Larry that his air defense units moved with the same rapid agility as a cavalry unit, the highest compliment I could pay them.
0800–1000 VII CORPS TAC
We had some orders to get out.
First, I wanted the corps to understand the rules of engagement; in particular, I wanted them to know they had the right of self-defense. I imagined that many Iraqi units were out of communications and therefore did not know the war was over. Second, we had some minor repositioning to do in order to get into a better and more coherent posture, and some of the commanders might have figured that getting into a more coherent posture would violate the cease-fire. Third, I was concerned about force protection, especially unexploded munitions, which numbered in the tens of thousands all over the battlefield. We'd already had casualties and deaths from these — just getting out of your vehicle in the dark had become hazardous. Fourth, I wanted the corps to stop taking the PSG pills and to get out of the by-now-nasty chemical overgarments we had worn day and night since 24 February.
Fifth, I wanted to meet with the commanders at noon.
1000–1200 VISITS
After taking care of these orders, I wanted to get out and around the corps as soon as possible, and personally congratulate as many units and commanders as I could. I began in the north with the 1st AD, to congratulate them on capturing the Medina headquarters.
Ron Griffith had commanded the division with great skill and tenacity, and had been thorough in preparing his soldiers for war. His Old Ironsides team had reflected his thorough, savvy approach to war fighting. He'd drilled them hard. Their intelligence had always been current, and Ron had synchronized his ground maneuver, combat aviation, and artillery masterfully. I always knew that when Ron told me something, it was well considered, and he was what I called an 'aware' commander; he always knew the score. I liked having Ron's savvy, street-smart commander wisdom on my team.
Ron went on to four-star rank, and is currently Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, the number-two-ranking general in the Department of the Army.
When Ron Griffith and I met that morning, I shook his hand and told him how proud I was of him and the soldiers and leaders of Old Ironsides.
Ron was elated at the performance of his division, and well he should have been. They had gone farther in their attack than any other of our units. During their attack, they had destroyed the better part of a brigade of the Tawalkana, a brigade of the Adnan, and two-thirds of the Medina, and captured the HQ of that division (by then vacant) and the HQ of the Iraqi VII Corps.
After I left Ron, we flew back toward the TAC. I noticed a tank unit on the ground and told Mark Greenwald to land so that I could talk to some of the soldiers. It was Company B, 1/8 Cavalry, a tank battalion in the 1st CAV. I walked up to a tank and talked to the crew. In a little while, some other soldiers gathered around, then identified themselves and their unit. When I asked what they had done, they told me they had moved all day and night to get there, but had never gotten into the fight. They were not happy about that.
After I explained that the cease-fire had kept them out of the fight, I congratulated them on their magnificent 250-kilometer move from the Ruqi Pocket to where we were now. Then in the sand I sketched out the basic VII Corps attack and the vital role their actions in the Ruqi Pocket had played. After thanking them again for what they had done to help gain the victory, I left to go back to the TAC.
1200 VII CORPS TAC CP
The moment I walked into the TAC, John Yeosock called. He wanted us to move corps units around to eliminate pockets of resistance behind us, within our lines, and to do it while staying within the cease-fire rules, which were not to fire unless fired upon or threatened. However, that didn't seem wise to me just then. Moving around put our troops at a disadvantage, I told him, and little was to be gained, since the Iraqis who had not yet heard about the cease-fire could shoot first. John said OK.
At 1220, I met with my five division commanders in the TAC and shook each one's hand. All of us were tired, but elated at our success. We also knew we still had work to do.
'I want to be the first of a long line of people to say well done,' I told them. 'No matter what is written, said, or shown about what happened out here, the courage of our soldiers in taking the fight to the enemy, day and night, in sandstorms and rain, will be forever stamped in the desert sands of Iraq and Kuwait. I'm not sure where this is going from here, but while it's fresh in our minds, I want to thank the soldiers for their superb performance.'
Then I talked about:
• accountability — keeping track of where all our soldiers were, as well as of casualties, and of protection and proper identification of remains;
• safety — especially with unexploded munitions;
• record keeping — to capture what we had done, including battle vignettes and lessons learned for the future;
• awards policy — including awards for valor and guidance on war trophies and souvenirs;
• destruction of Iraqi equipment.
The meeting lasted about an hour, and then the commanders returned to their units.
Soon after that, the first of the media arrived, including a correspondent from AP and another from an Arab news agency. I went over with them what we had done to include what I called our 'left hook,' thus distinguishing it from what others have erroneously called a 'Hail Mary' attack. In football, a Hail Mary play is a last-minute, go-for- broke attempt to score the winning touchdown by throwing a forward pass in the general direction of your opponent's end zone. The game is on the line, you're only a little behind, you have seconds left, so you throw… and hope. Our maneuver could not have been further from a Hail Mary. Later, in an interview with Rick Atkinson of the
'Was this the best maneuver of your career?' they asked.
I used a remark I had once heard Willie Mays make, after his well-known catch of a long drive from Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series: 'I just make the catches,' he said. 'I'll let you fellows describe them.'
Meanwhile, a few of the staff from the main had come out, and I thanked them all for their work as a team, repeating in more detail what I had told my commanders earlier, then I spent the rest of the day at the TAC with them, going over what needed to be done. There was still an enormous amount to do. We could not let up now (and it was by then seductively easy to let up).
