bridging for two weeks while Lee built his defenses). I would not permit planned pauses because they might not be needed and would break the natural momentum of an attack once it got rolling. On the other hand, I was prepared to accept
I did not agonize that night over my decision not to continue, much less second-guess myself. I was looking ahead to our objective. As we approached the RGFC, I thought about the moves and countermoves available to us and to them. I wanted them fixed and out of options while we still had some left. As I had been doing all along whenever I could, I stared at the map, making it come alive in my head. We are here, they are there. What do I want it to look like when we are successful? How do I get us from this state to that state at least cost?
I war-gamed in my head, involved some others, thought out loud with Stan. That not only helped me think my way through the next few days, it also got Stan inside my head, where he needed to be.
The bottom line that night was that I thought the RGFC would stay in a posture that would make FRAGPLAN 7 the best scheme of attack. I needed one more look to confirm it the next day. The timing depended on our being able to go from our current formation alignment to our attack alignment in less time than the Iraqis could react. I also could not wait too long or the corps would not be able to execute. My key 'reads' the next day would be our posture and the Iraqis'. Then I would decide.
Commanders of large campaigns and of large land forces don't think in chronological terms. They think in terms of the mission against a particular enemy, the organization of their forces on the ground, the time it takes to get their forces in a posture to accomplish their mission on that terrain and at the least cost to their own side. Sometimes they will think in terms of hours to accomplish all this, sometimes in terms of days. Sometimes the mission will take hours, sometimes it will take days.
Thus, when we examine what happened in a campaign such as Desert Storm on Day 1 (24 February), on Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4, rather than at the actual phases of the battle as they developed (and which didn't follow the rhythms of day and night), we miss the context within which a senior tactical commander views the battle and uses time.
In other words, during Desert Storm, I did not think in terms of discrete days. On the first day, on the twenty-fourth, when we were ordered to attack early, I was thinking in the present: we had lots to do to pull that off. But I also was thinking two days in advance. I knew that decisions I would make that first day would influence the posture the corps could get into on the third day, the twenty-sixth.
The third day was the key day, for in my judgment, that was when we would attack the Republican Guards. I would make the decision about how to attack them on the second day, and the first day's decisions would determine the range of alternatives available to me then. So in Desert Storm (other situations would have required different kinds of thinking), I thought in continuous periods of 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours, regardless of days. I also was aware that in large tactical organizations in large land battles, you cannot make many decisions over short time spans that cause major maneuvers. That is why you forecast key decision points and make decisions that stick. For that reason, my intent was to issue orders to my subordinate commanders that would last at least twelve hours before I had to change those instructions. In the event that I had to issue instructions that would cause a major rearrangement of the corps within our overall basic plan, I needed to give them as much as twenty-four hours. A total plans change, done from a cold start without warning — such as, for instance, an attack to Baghdad — might have taken as much as seventy-two hours from receipt to execution.
About midnight, I told Toby to wake me for anything significant, then left the enclosed area and went to get some rest. Stan and most of the TAC team were still at it when I left.
At 0500 on the twenty-fifth, I was awake and back at it. A quick paper cup of coffee, a few moments to strap on my leg and the other boot, shoulder holster, and Kevlar, then a short walk over to the TAC CP. The charcoal-lined chemical protective overgarment we all wore felt good in the early-morning cold. Stan Cherrie and the TAC team were already in there, and radios were already alive with reports.
CHAPTER TEN
Turn East
0600 VII CORPS TAC CP SAUDI ARABIA 25 FEBRUARY 1991
DURING the very brief — less than twenty-minute — morning update, I was interested in answers to the following questions: What was our situation? The enemy's situation? Where were we vulnerable? Where was the enemy vulnerable? What was happening on the flanks? Had higher HQ issued any changes? Did we need to make any adjustments to exploit an enemy vulnerability or to protect one of our own? Did anyone have any recommendations? Wherever I went, I looked for answers, for these formed the basis of my continuing running estimate.
I hadn't been away from the map long; things hadn't changed a lot.
G-2 went quickly over the enemy situation, then Stan reviewed the battle activities since midnight. Our units reported more prisoners. There were reports from 2nd ACR, as it approached Phase Line Smash, of battalion-sized units and heavy Iraqi equipment, such as tanks, which were early indicators that we could expect increased enemy actions the closer we got to the RGFC. As for the actual RGFC divisions, they did not appear to be going anywhere. They were still in position, attempting to set a defense. The earlier report that a brigade of the Hammurabi was moving out indicated that they might even be trying some kind of maneuver or repositioning north or west. As we had expected, they were not retreating. At this point, I did not know how much they knew about us. By now they were probably aware of a force out to the west, but I did not think they realized our size and capabilities. The early indicators showed some attempt at reorientation, but at this point it seemed to me they still believed the main attack was coming north up the Wadi.
I had no information otherwise from my own VII Corps sources or from Third Army. Because the Iraqi defense was hasty and not well coordinated, they were vulnerable to a massed fist attack. Good.
We had not gotten any change in orders from Third Army.
While I received this short briefing, the radios in the TAC continued to come alive with short-burst transmissions, as corps units reported moves, locations, and enemy contacts, and gave situation reports. Each staff section was busy on the phone getting longer messages or reports, and our NCOs were back and forth in both G-2 and G-3, posting the latest friendly and enemy situations on the map. Troops were already beginning to break the TAC down, getting ready to move as soon as I left. The breakdown of the TAC normally took less than an hour if you had had a lot of practice, and by now these soldiers had had a lot of practice.
Throughout all this, I was both thinking and listening — redoing my mental map of enemy and friendly units based on the briefing, looking forward to key decisions I needed to make that day in order to set corps action in motion to accomplish objectives the next day. First, I did not want to give the Iraqis any more time to set a defense. Second, this was the day to commit to our attack formation. FRAGPLAN 7 [28] still looked like the best choice, though questions remained about 1st CAV, which was still being held by General Schwarzkopf in CENTCOM reserve.
I was also thinking of where I needed to go that morning to get information (or to confirm what I already had), to get a feel for the battles and their tempo, and reinforce what I wanted done face-to-face with the commanders.
Right now, I was getting maybe 20 percent of my input from my staff at the CP; 40 to 50 percent from what I was seeing and hearing myself, and from my commanders as I met them; and the rest came from my own professional knowledge, training, education, and combat experience.
As we saw in an earlier chapter (but it bears repeating now), most often you decide to decide. You ask
