the day Franks deployed VII Corps HQ to Saudi Arabia. Though it was meant to accomplish a number of things simultaneously, it was aimed first and foremost at helping VII Corps families cope with the deployment and the war (if indeed there was to be a war, which was not yet certain).
To run the base, Franks and General Saint appointed Major General Roger Bean, current commander of the Pershing Brigade in Germany and an old friend of Franks, and as chief of staff Colonel Jerry Sinn, superb officer and the head of resource management. As an enlisted man in Vietnam, Sinn had been a tunnel rat, one of the soldiers who volunteered to go down into Viet Cong tunnels and look for the enemy, armed with only a pistol and flashlight.
As part of the order, Franks directed formation of a family-support directorate, whose sole responsibility was to help families in the corps. It was headed by Colonel Bob Julian, who had been running the corps's communications modernization program, now on hold because of Desert Shield.
Within each military community were formed what were called Family Assistance Centers — FACs — where the highest priority was to get information back and forth between families and forward-deployed spouses. Using faxes of newsletters, videotapes, phone calls, and messages, the FACs became nerve centers of information and comfort. At corps HQ at Kelly Barracks in Stuttgart, by converting an unused area with fresh paint and other internal construction, the spouses built a center where they could hold regular meetings and where teenagers of older military families could assume responsibilities and lend their considerable energies and talents. An e-mail system connected them to units in the Gulf. AT&T established a one-page 'Desert Fax' program. Newsletters began all over VII Corps. Denise Franks started one of these,
For all these efforts, the Army allowed use of transportation, copying machines, office space, and phones. For instance, Roger Bean let Denise use Fred's old commander's office for her own family-support work. She held her first of what turned out to be weekly meetings with a special task force on 13 November 1990, and also formed an informal advisory board with other senior commanders' spouses. Throughout the VII Corps area, similar arrangements sprang up, with Ron Griffith's wife, Hurdis; Butch Funk's wife, Danny; and others.
In an unprecedented act of friendship, the Germans poured out their support. Relations between the Americans and Germans had been genuinely warm and long-lasting, and now German army units provided security and transportation, and private German citizens contributed thousands of Deutschmarks for families, and sponsored Christmas functions.
Meanwhile, U.S. Army families in Germany began a yellow-ribbon campaign. The ribbons appeared everywhere to symbolize support for the deployed soldiers, and they stayed up until the soldiers came home. If there was a shortage of yellow ribbon, more was sent from the United States. Bolts arrived in Stuttgart. Every tree seemed to have one tied around it. Homes and office buildings and barracks became festooned with bright yellow ribbons.
Deployment reached and touched everyone. Some older families had more than one member deployed. In a spouse's absence, families bonded together to remember special occasions, such as anniversaries, births, graduations, and school events, and even to care for families where both spouses were deployed. The unofficial theme song in VII Corps Base was 'From a Distance.'
Security was tightened considerably, as threats from terrorism were real. Military police and local German police bonded together to provide a visible presence both on and off military
Schools also pitched in. Before Franks deployed, the head of the DODDS (Department of Defense Dependent School System) came to him and asked how the teachers could help. VII Corps immediately included DODDS in the information channels so that the teachers could explain what was going on to the students in school. The teachers also saw the children of the soldiers who were forward-deployed and at war every day, and were sensitive to their individual needs. They were quick to spot a student whose behavior might have changed, and to alert parents and offer counseling.
All of this activity was based on the simple yet profound idea that the Army takes care of its own. Following Desert Storm, the Army set about to capture valuable lessons learned, and published a TRADOC pamphlet in 1994 that would prove useful to future generations of families in similar circumstances, and would begin a formal program called Army Family Team Building. Many of the lessons were applied when U.S. Army forces deployed from Germany to Bosnia in 1995.
TIME IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD
The crush and variety of daily activities getting ready for war was almost mind-boggling. No one was exempt, from Franks commanding the corps to the Bradley or tank driver. It never let up. From the notification on 8 November to the week before the attack, when the last units from the 3rd AD arrived, it was the most intensive fourteen-week period of concurrent activities Fred Franks experienced in all his time in the Army. His REFORGER experiences were mild compared to this. His enemies quickly became accidents, troop sickness — and time: time to train, time to physically protect his troops.
The first thing he and his commanders noticed was the bare-bones nature of the theater. Everything became a struggle. Basic survival had to be created in the desert: shelters, sanitation, water, and food. Communications had to be set up, mail delivered, training ranges built, training started. And that was when they managed to get into the desert. It was hard enough just getting through the ports.
The VII Corps planners wanted to use the Saudi Arabian ports of Dammam and Jubayl. Because Jubayl was over 100 kilometers closer to their Tactical Assembly Areas, they wanted to bring the heavy forces through there, link up soldiers and equipment after two or three days, and move them quickly to the desert TAAs to begin training. They also had planned to combat-load[12] the ships, so that equipment could be speedily married up with units, and again moved to the desert.
None of these plans proved feasible. The airflow was smooth and uneventful, in fact, almost too efficient, because troops arrived on time, but ships did not. Some delays were caused by weather, some by ship breakdown. One crew jumped ship because they objected to arriving in a war zone.
In a perfect operation, the planners had estimated they would have a steady state of 8,000 to 10,000 troops in port at any one time, with a stay for each soldier of no longer than two or three days. They ended up with triple those numbers. Some troops waited in port for as long as three weeks for their equipment, which compounded the problems caused by the temporary living conditions in the port, fractured unit integrity, and seriously delayed plans for training in the desert. Though the command coped with these problems, they still had to face hundreds of unwanted daily issues. Stress on soldiers was high.
All of these problems continually proved the wisdom of placing Brigadier General Bill Mullen in command of corps Port Support Authority just after Christmas in 1990. The corps could not have gotten so ready to fight in such a short period of time with so many challenges to overcome if it had not been for the work of Mullen and his 1st ID Forward leaders and soldiers.
Their accomplishments were staggering. Between 5 December and 18 February, 50,500 vehicles were off- loaded and staged (checked and readied for heavy equipment transporter movement), 107,000 troops were billeted, supported, and secured, as well as thousands of other soldiers from other units. There were 900 convoys (the numbers of trucks in the convoys varied from twenty to fifty). More than 6,000 armored vehicles and other pieces of equipment were moved the 550 kilometers to desert assembly areas. Thirty-five hundred containers with spare parts and other critical items were sent forward. Eighty-six hundred vehicles were painted sand color. The maximum number of soldiers in port waiting for their equipment peaked at 35,981 on 9 January 1991 (many more than the eight to ten thousand soldiers they had planned for!). Maximum ship arrivals were eight in one day. On 12 January, nineteen ships were waiting to off-load. The last tanks and Bradleys arrived from Germany from the 3rd Brigade, 3rd AD, on 6 February 1991. The last of VII Corps's units to arrive was the 142nd Artillery Brigade from the Arkansas National Guard on 17 February 1991. The types of ships varied: 11 U.S. Navy fast sea lift; 63 so-called
