Guestbook
We would greatly appreciate it if you would send
us stories about experiences that your friends or family have had in Desert
Storm. Any stories that you send in will be added to our website
for others to enjoy. Place your stories in the comment section of
our Guestbook.
Stories from Real
People
This segment of our web page
is made mostly of stories from real people . There are some stories hear
we just thought that you'd like to hear. Today's story is from Rodney Huggins
of Dalton, Georgia.
We landed in Saudi Arabia in
January. When we got in the country, there was about a foot of water at
base camp. It was really rare considering a desert only receives about
4 inches of rainfall a year. We immediately went to the field. Navigation
and direction were a lot more difficult since there was no landmarks or
trees to go by. The whole landscape was flat as a board with absolutely
no scenery of any kind.
We moved in to Kuwait
at about midnight one night. It was very exciting, knowing Iraqis were
in position already. After arriving in Kuwait, it didn't take long for
the air strikes to begin. You could set your clocks by the jets going back
and forth overhead. After a couple position changes our battery was moved
to a direct support role “Tiger Battalion”. (Tiger battalion is a battalion
of army tanks assigned to our marine division.) So we had tiger battalion
in front of our 10 inch artillery battery. Our battery alone consisted
of six motorized artillery pieces. We had 20 trucks and jeeps, and 100
or so men. We generally played cards and griped to pass the time. The most
popular saying in the military is “Hurry up and wait”.
Waiting one morning
on our first hot breakfast in two months was what we were doing when we
got our first fire mission. (Not hot chow.) We started firing and fired
most of the day. Every ones nerves were on edge knowing other people were
on the receiving end of our shells. It's not a real good feeling. But everyone
signed on the dotted line. If you liked it, then good. If you didn't
then just do your job and hush. Fortunately I thought and still do that
what we were doing was right.
Our
job turned out to be not as extensive as we expected. The Iraqis were more
willing to quit than we were to fight. Our last position was about 2 miles
outside Kuwait city. The city was very impressive. Except we all really
wanted to come home. It was an experience I wouldn't trade for the world.