CHAPTER FIVE - HALFWAY HOME

  That same June my Air Guard unit was scheduled to be deployed to Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall England. I was excited about this because we were organizing a tour package that would make it affordable to take our wives. Debbie's sister Sylvia wanted to take the trip which made it possible for Debbie to go. This was because she would have never have agreed to go on such a long trip by herself. England was my fourth overseas deployment and it was exciting to know that Debbie would finally get to go on one with me. We would celebrate our 22nd anniversary together while we were there. Our unit would go over on a brand new C-130-H model because we had been supplied with 16 of them straight off of the assembly line a few months earlier in February 1990. There had been a ceremony attended by Tennessee governor Ned McWherter and Senator Jim Sasser. Sasser flew in on our first C-130 H model named the Spirit of Music City which was emblazoned on the side of the cockpit. The music notes painted on the side were to the song, " I Am Proud To Be An American" by Lee Greenwood. This would be the plane that we would fly back from England on.

  After arriving in England we would go immediately into the field for a few  days of ABGD training. The women would arrive the following week while we were still in the field. It had been a rough few days in the field. I spent our anniversary in the rain and mud of the English countryside. When we got back to the barracks I met up with Debbie and Sylvia at the hotel that had been reserved for the wives. While we were still in the field they had already toured Cambridge and a few surrounding villages. The rest of the weekend was spent touring Cambridge again, Belvoir Castle, where we saw a joust, and London. I loved Cambridge, especially the American War Cemetery there. It was one of the most beautiful cemeteries that I have ever seen. American Airmen killed during WW2 in Europe were buried there. We got to see London the right way, which was on a guided bus tour. we tour. The very next day there was an IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorist bombing in one of the areas that we had visited . I really enjoyed the time Debbie and I spent together that week. It felt like we were on a second honeymoon and I was sad to see her go toward the end of the week. The last few days I was there by myself we pulled regular flight line security with the active duty SP's at Mildenhall.

 Not long after returning home from England Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The only thing that saved Rob's ship from being deployed to the Persian Gulf was that the Wainwright went into dry dock at Norfolk Virginia the day before on August 1st. The ship would be in dry dock for a year and Rob would be stationed at Norfolk until sometime in 1991. Within a few days President George H. W. Bush received permission from Saudi Arabia to send in American troops for the purpose of defending Saudi Arabia from an Iraqi invasion. In time a group of Arab nations, along with other world powers, formed a coalition through the UN to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraqi aggression. A mandate was passed in the UN to reclaim Kuwait and a line was drawn in the sand. Operation Desert Shield was put in motion. I will never forget the day that the 101st Airborne Division was mobilized and sent southeast to the seaport of Savannah for shipment to Saudi Arabia. People were gathered along every overpass holding up American flags and signs cheering on the troops as convoy after convoy drove the length of I-24 on their way to Savannah. The hair stood up on the back of my neck as I witnessed a surge of patriotism in the country.

 A few weeks later a Smyrna National Guard unit left for the desert with Smyrna citizens and Lavergne High School students cheering them on down Sam Ridley Blvd. behind a police escort. Rumors swept through our unit as we waited for possible activation for service in the desert. We were all encouraged to make out wills as a precaution and I made one out. It was inexcusable that I had waited as long as I did to make out a will. Considering that I lost my parents at such an early age and daddy had no will. Saddam Hussein supposedly had the 4th largest army in the world and people were worried for our troops. In the first weeks as we were setting up Desert Shield the worry was that Saddam would attack while we were the most vulnerable. Nevertheless, I was hoping that our unit would get the call to go. I felt that we had a good cause and maybe our leaders would fight a war the right way for a change.

  As it turned out America fought the war right, at least right up to the point of total victory. Then we dropped the ball by not finishing the job. On the morning of January 17th 1991 the American and allied forces opened a massive air campaign against Iraq. I was shopping at Roses department store in Murfreesboro the night Operation Desert Storm started and was watching CNN on the display televisions as the sky over Baghdad erupted in an unbelievable display of Iraqi antiaircraft fire. The Iraqi's were unsuccessfully trying to hit our Stealth fighters that were bombing selected targets with pinpoint accuracy. I was excited as I called Debbie to let her know that the war had started and I realized that she was crying as I hung up the phone. She had already heard the news. 

 Over the next month and a half we watched amazing footage of pinpoint bombing of targets in Iraq. Footage of Saudi Arabia and Israel being attacked by Iraqi Scud missiles. We had the fear that chemical weapons would at some point be unleashed on our troops and on Israel but the chemical attacks never materialized. My Air Guard unit finally received orders for activation but we were not going to Saudi Arabia, or overseas as I was hoping. Our unit was activated to provide 24/7 security for our aircraft in Nashville due to the elevated terrorist threat caused by the war. Altogether we were on active duty for about a month and a half. I was disappointed because I wanted to take a more active role in the war but all we did was patrol the flight line during the war.

 On midnight shifts we would sometimes take turns sleeping. One of us would drive the vehicle while the other slept in the passenger seat. One night I was working with a new Airman and he slept while I drove. When it was my turn to sleep I felt a little uneasy about this guy but I was very sleepy and took a chance on him. I don't know how long I had been asleep when I felt a thump and I looked up just in time to see our vehicle headed straight toward the nose of a C-130. The Airman was sound asleep at the wheel and I woke him up just in time to brake before hitting the aircraft. Needless to say there was no more sleeping that night. I could see myself trying to explain how we ran into a C-130. 

 The country was in a very patriotic mood and to my surprise Bridgestone announced that they were going to pay all guard members that were activated during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, their full salary while on active duty. My active duty pay wasn't very much and at the time I was making over twenty dollars an hour at Bridgestone. They would pay the difference between my active duty pay and my Bridgestone pay. I was very thankful. The nation was holding it's breath contemplating the onset of the ground war. The media was telling us that Iraq had the fourth largest army in the world. We were constantly reminded by the media how elite that the Iraqi Republican guard was. and that plenty of body bags had been ordered. We didn't have a clue how many casualties we were going to have. The media estimated that there could be as high as 10 to 15 thousand American casualties. 

 The ground war started on February 24th and ended on my 41st birthday, February 28, 1991. We cut through their forces like a hot knife through butter. Thousands of Iraqi troops gladly surrendered to American forces after constant bombing by Allied and American air forces. The body bags were used for Iraqi bodies rather than American for the most part. Our doctors treated way more Iraqi casualties than American or Allied forces. Coalition forces suffered 292 killed (147 killed by enemy action, 145 non-hostile deaths) 467 wounded in action, and 776 wounded. Many of our troops were killed by friendly fire. Iraqi forces suffered 20,000 to 35,000 killed and 75,000+ wounded. The country was relieved because we suffered so few casualties and a wave of patriotism swept over the country. There were numerous parades and celebrations as we welcomed our troops home as heroes over the next few weeks and months after the end of the four day ground war. 

 For a while I thought that President Bush's handling of the war was good but over the years since I have come to realize that we missed a golden opportunity. The road to Baghdad was wide open and I believe that if we had taken Baghdad, and the rest of Iraq, during that time, we could have avoided the bloodshed and resistance that we endured after we invaded Iraq in 2003. Yes, we did drive the Iraqi's out of Kuwait but we allowed at least half of the Iraqi army to survive. The Shiite majority would have probably supported our invasion. Instead, Bush encouraged them to rebel, but when they did Saddam slaughtered them. Per the agreement that ended the first Gulf War, he was allowed to fly his helicopter gunships. Even General Norman Schwarzkopf, who allowed the Iraqi's to fly their gunships, acknowledged that this was a mistake. Saddam was totally surprised by how easily and quickly that we destroyed his forces. He actually thought that we would remove him from power but when we didn't he took that to mean he had actually won the war instead of losing it. Saddam was not prepared to run an insurgency against us in 1991 but he had 12 years to prepare for an insurgency when we finally decided to take him out in 2003. He knew that sooner or later we would be coming for him and we could have avoided over 4,000 casualties that we incurred in Iraq from 2003 until we left Iraq in 2011.