Third Infantry also ran the convoy operations over German highways to ports in northern Germany and Holland and provided the cadre to load the ships at the port.
12
Combat loading places a unit's weapons, equipment, ammo, and vehicles on board a ship in such a way that when these are unloaded at their destination, they'll be 'ready to go.' You can, for example, theoretically drive a combat-loaded unit off the ship and go fight it.
13
Tactical Satellite Radio. When VII Corps deployed, they had none of these. They eventually got thirty-three for the whole corps. They could have used more.
14
Franks and the commander of Egyptian forces in the coalition, Major General Saleh Halaby, exchanged visits several times during the course of the preparations for war. They talked about command arrangements and exchanged plans. In fact, as it turned out, the Egyptian army knew the Iraqis very well, for they had seen them during the Iran-Iraq War. And during one of their visits Franks got from Haleby his appraisal of Iraqi forces. It turned out to be the most accurate assessment Franks would get of the Iraqis: He was right on target.
15
They thought the RGFC would attempt either to escape from the theater via Highway 8, to counterattack against attacking Third Army corps, or to defend the approaches to Basra. It was believed that the last was their most likely choice.
16
The UN gave the Iraqis a 15 January deadline to get out of Kuwait, after which point the Coalition considered itself officially at war with Iraq. The deadline passed, and the air war began on 17 January.
17
In July 1994, Franks directed that a building at TRADOC headquarters at Fort Monroe, Virginia, be dedicated in his memory. Present at the dedication were his family and his whole chain of command, from platoon leader to corps commander (by now John Tilelli was also a four-star general and Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.) It is the first building at that national historic landmark to be dedicated to an enlisted soldier. Ardon was a hero.
18
Phase lines are used to keep units abreast of one another when that is necessary, or to otherwise control a unit. It is easier to maneuver units if they have common reference points on which to orient — especially in the desert, where there are no landmarks.
19
Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions — small hand grenade-sized bomblets packed into an artillery shell and dispensed when the shell bursts in the air; about 5 percent were duds.
20
As it turned out, this period set a ten-year record for rainfall.
21
Ray died of a heart attack in 1993; he was a superb officer who knew more about corps deep operations than anyone I knew. He was also a meticulous planner and relentless in seeing orders executed to completion.
22
Such is the nature of investment decisions for strategic and tactical communications. Strategic comms work well and get big dollars for development, while the closer you get to where rounds impact, the less money and the more primitive the comms. So you improvise and do other things. Except for 3rd AD, we had tactical line-of-sight communications that dated back to the early 1960s and had been used in Vietnam.
23
Cal Waller died of a heart attack in 1995. He was an invaluable line of communication with General Schwarzkopf, and in January had the courage to say that we weren't then ready to attack (even though several people wished that was somehow so); he was for a time Third Army commander, a job he handled with professionalism and skill; and he was a friend.
