listens to them closely and then dismisses them with warm handshakes and no information or decisions. Now frustrated, they stop by to see the American in charge, both as a courtesy call and because they are scared that they cannot get their forces into this war, and if they do they will come under U.S. command and control, which they don’t want. (Eventually it works out that French forces do come into the war, and under American command and control — but with allowances for French fears.) There is lots of cagey diplomatic talk, as they probe for concessions and try not to offer anything in return. As I listen, I resist the urge to stick in the needle about their NATO participation. That is, if they had been better allies in NATO, then we would not be having these “getting to know you” sessions in Riyadh. I play good guy without committing to anything but a warm welcome and assurances that their national sovereignty will be respected, and as a sovereign nation they will be equal partners… Of course, after the war they will want to be superior partners when it comes to selling military equipment to the Arab nations (to include Iraq).
This all takes twenty to forty-five minutes, after which we part amicably. But by then they’ll know that even though they would have preferred to come in as the big brother to the Saudis, they will have to work with the Americans if they want in the game. It is hard to be the big brother when the three-hundred-pound Yankee is around and you weigh 120 pounds.
Time for lunch.
1230 Grr and I jump in the car and head back to the USMTM compound to eat at the club. Before the crisis, it used to serve maybe thirty people at lunchtime and had a good menu at reasonable prices, hamburger and fries with a diet Coke being a good choice. Now it serves two thousand people with a buffet [chow] line set up in the entrance, and you eat chili or spaghetti or beef stew off a paper plate and get a paper cup of Kool-Aid. There are not enough tables, and I’ve made sure there are no longer reserved tables for the general officers, as was the case before the crisis. All are equal and first come first serve, so you either stand holding your food until someone leaves, or you find a place to sit on the floor or in the small movie theater where the USMTM families used to go for entertainment. People are considerate and eat fast, and they give up their seats ASAP.
Troops I run into at lunch ask me what is going on, and I pretend to know and give them the best update I can.
1300 I go to my apartment, take the elevator up to the fifth floor, and lie down for a twenty- minute power nap. After I wake up, I change into my flight suit from desert fatigues. Grr is waiting downstairs. We head out to Riyadh Air Base five blocks to the north along Airport Boulevard to go flying.
1345 We arrive at the jets, two F-16s parked together with the RSAF PC-9 trainer aircraft on the east ramp, about seven hundred yards from where our AWACS are parked. The jets are from Al Dhafra in the UAE; the crews come up to work a duty shift of a week in the TACC, and the pilots they replace will take the jets home after Grr and I get our flight in.
1400 Grr and I take off for Dhahran AB in the eastern province. We check in with AWACS (the normal thing to do), and they provide air traffic control services for us. Though we may fly a low-level navigation mission, we’ll probably do Dissimilar Air Combat Tactics against F-15Cs. The mission will have been planned by Grr while I was at work that morning. After about an hour in the air, we land at Dhahran. We taxi up to the ramp where the 1st Wing has their jets parked, where we are met by Colonel John McBroom, the wing commander, who may have been in the flight we fought coming in.
1515 After a short debriefing on the training flight, I get in a car with Boomer McBroom to go visit the troops.
First we’ll meet with the maintenance troops. We’ll listen to their needs and answer their questions. Most of the time, these are about when are we going to go after “ him” (Saddam). Morale is always high, and while working conditions are tough, they keep the jets in commission at very high rates. What the hell, they don’t have anything else to do. It’s amazing how much time families, drinking, and sex take from our day. When you are without, you are much more productive and do not get into nearly as much trouble. Yet all of this, too, has its limits.
1600 We have been out to the weapons-storage area, and then we visit the school where the USAF reserve nurses are being housed. This last includes walking through sleeping areas where several nurses are in various stages of undress. They seem unconcerned about that, but I am embarrassed; and I talk to them with averted eyes, wishing I had guts enough to glance at their bra-clad chests. It’s the shits when you have to be on public display and on your best behavior. Afterward, we stop by the mail room, since it is a hot spot, and I make sure they have all they need to move the huge amounts of mail out to the troops in a timely manner. Next, we stop by an RSAF Tornado squadron to meet with Brigadier General Turki, the base commander, and his wing commander, Brigadier General Mansour. We talk about their preparations for war and the ongoing Combat Air Patrols we are flying together in the air defense of the Kingdom role. After that, we pass through the integrated USAF and RSAF engine shop to see how our two maintenance forces are integrating and working together. Saudi NCOs and our men and women are working side by side there, but it seems to be working out… Even though some of our women are visibly female under their T-shirts, this seems to have pretty much the same effects on all the males, whether Islamic or south Georgian.
We will end up at one of the USAF squadrons and talk to Intel, pilots, etc., and answer questions, perhaps in a short pilots’ meeting. The pilots are worried about screwing up in combat and tired of flying from midnight till dawn in the “CAP FROM HELL” (so called because you do it late at night, you are tired and bored, but you have to stay alert).
1700 Grr and I climb in our jets. I lead this time, and we fly along the Iraqi border to check out the ground forces that have moved in and to check in with any of the attached Tactical Air Control parties that may be in place. Grr coordinated with these while I was touring with Boomer. Lead elements of the 82d Airborne are north of Dhahran, and we do some dry CAS with their Battalion ALO; but there is not much else in the desert. By the time we land at Riyadh and the crews going back to the UAE take the jets from us, it is starting to get dark. I am tired from flying and fall asleep in the car as we drive back to MODA.
1900 In MODA, I read stacks of messages and make the usual notes on the margins. Don Kaufman has a list of things that have come up, and we run through them. I call Schwarzkopf to give him an update and listen as he anguishes about the problems he is facing getting combat power over ahead of headquarters (since headquarters doesn’t fight the enemy). John Yeosock is also in the suite after an afternoon of visiting with arriving units (he gets around in a C-12 light aircraft or a helicopter); and we compare notes about what we will do if the Iraqis attack that night. As we talk, we eat some french fries and swarmas, which are Saudi sandwiches — pita bread with grilled slices of lamb and mayonnaise.
Later, I may have a visitor from one of the arriving coalition forces, and we chat about their plans — e.g.: what forces they are bringing, where they would like to beddown, what support they might need, and the command-and-control lash-up. I put them at ease about the logistics concerns and promise to help with any special needs. For example, the airmen all want to know how their squadrons will receive the Air Tasking Order, and I explain that we will either have them collocate with a CAFMS [37]-equipped U.S. squadron or I will get them a CAFMS terminal of their own. If the visitor is a high-ranking officer (which might be a major, if that is high ranking for that air force/ army/navy), then I will invite him to the evening meeting.
2100 John, Don, and I go downstairs to the MODA bunker for the evening meeting with our Saudi counterparts. General Hamad and I will cochair the meeting, but Khaled will also be important. That is to say, if anything is to be decided afterward, it will be done in private with Khaled. John and his counterpart, Yousef Rashid, Tom Olsen and Behery, Grant Sharp and Admiral Talil will all sit with one another. I am always diffident at this meeting, because I am simply filling in for Schwarzkopf and do not want to make any waves. Still, we need some structure for working together and addressing any problems that come up. We do not spend a lot of time working strategy, as I am not sure the American ground forces want to fight in an integrated manner with their Saudi counterparts, and besides, they are just getting unloaded from the ships and planes and don’t know how to find the bathrooms yet. All the same, we must have some interaction. (The air forces, we quickly find, are already well integrated after years of training together and because of our AWACS operations during the Iran-Iraq War.)
The meeting will start off with an intelligence update: One night the United States will supply the briefers, the next night the Saudis will brief. After about twenty minutes of briefing, other briefers describe
