conceding the initiative to the Warsaw Pact in our NATO mission, I liked this much better.
But truly relaxed? No.
I felt the stress — we all did, soldiers and leaders alike. All over the command, the pressure was constant. Some of it was physical, due to the extended austere living conditions, especially for the soldiers, and some was mental, because we were going to war and there were a lot of big unknowns. Those who had not been in combat probably wondered how they would handle it. Those who knew combat wondered what this war would bring. There was also a sense of isolation there in the desert. As a commander, you do your best to relieve some of the stress by the command climate you set, the way you treat people, the decisions you make, and the way you make them. But getting soldiers and units ready for war also means tough decisions, hard work, and being unyielding on the need to meet rigorous battlefield standards. As for myself, my own way of relieving stress wasn't to take days off, but to visit fellow leaders and soldiers, to try to do things for them: 'To lead is also to serve.' They always did more for me than I did for them. They never failed to inspire me with their hard work, selfless attitude, sense of humor, and flat-out competence.
Like most mornings over the past hundred days, the transition from sleep to waking was not gradual. As soon as I woke up, my brain switched on full throttle. From the time we had gotten the mission, I had never stopped concentrating on the myriad issues confronting us, as well as on all the details that had to be dealt with in order to get ready for and execute combat operations. That focus consumed me that day and every day as we prepared for battle. I never concentrated as hard on anything in my life. It was seven days a week, every waking second; and it probably continued in my subconscious somehow when I slept. There were no days off; I just couldn't do that. General Hancock said it right at Gettysburg: 'Today, a corps commander's life is not important.' I felt it was my duty to spend myself to the max for this mission and the troops for whom I was responsible. I lived it. I internalized the various parts of the corps so that I would know its behavior like my own. It was like a living part of me. We almost became as one. I was not alone in this. I had seen all my leaders and commanders do the same in their organizations.
So I was focused and intent on what we were about to do that morning, and especially on what we needed to do that day — to the point that I didn't notice much that was around me — yet I was also about as relaxed as a commander could be this close to a major attack. I was confident, but I knew that things rarely went exactly as planned, and I was acutely aware of my responsibilities.
My first focus that morning was on what we call a commander's running estimate — the continuing assessment in my own head of what was going on in the corps and of possible enemy actions. A commander does this constantly, looking at the situation and war-gaming possibilities, and his staff does the same, often separated in time and distance.
Here is how the corps looked to me that morning as I renewed our activities over the past few days.
The main issue for us that day was to move our enveloping force (2nd ACR, 1st AD, and 3rd AD) and our breach force (1st INF) far enough forward to make the start of our attack tomorrow release like a coiled spring. This would jump-start a momentum that would not let up until we destroyed the Republican Guards, in the sector Third Army had assigned us.
1ST INF DIVISION. Prior to this morning, elements of the 1st INF had moved forward once before. On 16 February, in order to get artillery close enough to reach Iraqi artillery in range of the breach, Tom Rhame had pushed his 1st INF, 3rd Brigade, commanded by Colonel Dave Weisman, forward to occupy the Iraqi security zone (an area in front of the Iraqi main defense that extended from the border about fifteen kilometers into Iraq). During this operation, the brigade had been in several sharp fights with Iraqi recon units and done well in their first combat. On the night of 17 February, we had had the first blue-on-blue (what some call fratricide, or so-called friendly fire) in the 1st Infantry Division, when a division Apache had fired on a 3rd Brigade Bradley and an M113, killing two of our soldiers and wounding six others. As a result, Tom Rhame, with my concurrence, had relieved the aviation battalion commander who had personally fired the fatal missile. The same day, an MLRS in the division artillery south of the border had fired by mistake into our attack positions. Though, as luck would have it, the rockets had fallen harmlessly into the sand, I was still concerned, because I wanted to build on early success. I had ordered Tom to pull the whole brigade back out of the Iraqi security zone that afternoon. That way, we reinforced our deception by signaling to the Iraqis that we were not coming at them from that direction.
CORPS ARTILLERY. During the period just before G-Day, Iraqi artillery was our main focus, especially those capable of firing chemical munitions. Because we didn't want to give away the location of our attack, we waited until about a week before the actual assault in which our artillery, attack helicopters, and close air support would hit the Iraqi artillery that was within range of the breach. We knew the Iraqis paid a lot of attention to artillery preparations, so if we'd been pounding the area out in front of the 1st Infantry Division for a couple of weeks, they probably would have reported to the RGFC: 'Hey, they've got some sizable forces out here. Looks like they're coming farther west of the Wadi.'
Later on G-Day, artillery would move into position before the 1st INF attack for two hours of preparatory fires into the breach area, in order to destroy the Iraqi artillery in range of the breach site. This prep fire had been planned by Brigadier General Creighton Abrams and Colonel Mike Dotson, the Big Red One Division artillery commander, and it would be shot by the 1st INF Division artillery, reinforced by three VII Corps artillery brigades, the 42nd, 75th, and 142nd, and the artillery of the 1st UK Division. After their firing mission, the 42nd and 75th Artillery Brigades would move through the newly opened breach and join the enveloping 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions, respectively, to reinforce the fires of their division artillery units in time for those division attacks on the RGFC.
ENVELOPING FORCE. Here our challenge was to find sufficient room to maneuver—1st AD, with their twenty-five kilometers of front on the Iraqi border, and 3rd AD, with their fifteen kilometers next to them.
I had given 1st Armored the extra room so that Ron Griffith could put two of his three ground-maneuver brigades side by side in a desert wedge (one brigade leading, followed by two brigades abreast). That way, he wouldn't be held up by time-consuming repositioning when we released the coiled spring. I wanted 1st Armored really fast off the mark — as though shot from a cannon toward Objective Purple, the Iraqi VII Corps logistics site at the Iraqi village of al-Busayyah, some 120 kilometers north of the border.
Given the enemy forces and the terrain he had to get through, I had estimated Ron would reach Purple about eight hours after H-Hour. Once he had seized that objective, we would have a major maneuver force north and west of the RGFC, one that was positioned to outflank any RGFC attack that might come west or southwest of their present locations to meet our enveloping force. (Iraqi forces habitually met a penetration attack head-on, and not from the flanks, as our doctrine advises.)
Because 1st AD had to be launched quickly, Butch Funk and his 3rd Armored Division had to start in a column of brigades that would initially extend almost 120 kilometers to the rear. Though 3rd AD was our corps reserve, they were not stationary. I wanted them moved forward across the border today, and I wanted them to get into a better offensive formation before they attacked tomorrow. Once he crossed the border and we got him more room, he could shift to whatever attack formation he thought necessary for the missions I had assigned him. It would take time, but I thought they would have time on G-Day and G+1 to get into another tactical formation before I committed them to any of the contingencies we had war-gamed.
While preparing for this maneuver, Butch also had to contend with another contingency, one that he handled with the kind of ease I'd come to expect from him: If CENTCOM committed the 1st Cavalry Division to JFC-North, then VII Corps was responsible for providing 1st CAV with a third maneuver brigade to replace the one 1st CAV had given earlier to the U.S. Marines. If that happened, I planned to order Butch to send one of his brigades to 1st CAV.
