I was the com/nav shop head at the time, and a Staff Sergeant. We walked into the hangars on the second of August, and there wasn’t a sound from the flight line or the shops. It was very weird, because normally it was buzzing and clanging. And then we were told to get our troops and muster on the hangar deck.
There, the skipper told the entire squadron that Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait that morning, and we would all be packing up to head back to El Toro in anticipation of something big going down, in line with precisely why we were there to begin with.
Everyone had half an hour to get to the barracks to get their gear and get back, because we had planes to launch and gear to embark as soon as they could scramble the 130s to come get us.
All the troops took off, but the SgtMaj held us shop heads back and said,
‘I don’t know HOW she did it, or got the number, but the phone rang on the CO’s desk first this morning, and it was LCpl Schmuckatelli’s wife. FROM EL TORO. She called to tell the Skipper that she was very sorry about the deployment to Saudi Arabia (!), but LCpl Schmuckatelli couldn’t go, because she has three children and doesn’t drive.’
l gotta say, as a literal and figurative student of history with emphasis 20th century, and a degree in poli sci and minors in economics, l kinda got it covered with a broad range of the ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ and very important ‘whys’.
it is my considered opinion that the modern American armed forces are the *single* best equipped, motivated and EFFECTIVE military in all history of civilization.
migawd, those folks can sit at a console state side, fly a drone other side of the world, lay down ordnance accurate enough to ‘thread a needle’, and do it again the next day.
gadgetry in the books we cant even imagine, more nuke carriers than the rest of the world combined, and a long history of very successful hardass commanders.
my all time fav? WW I’s Arthur Currie. 2nd place Georgie S Patton.
“Showboat” Patton excelled at tooling around in the boondocks while Canadian and British forces (Bradley’s too) drove the enemy into retreat .. then there was George in the “liberation parade”. The only time his 3rd army faced a strong defense … at Moselle, against old men and green conscript kids … he was held up until he almost missed catching the retreating Germans at Bastogne. German commanders rated him as “mediocre” on the sparse record he had in facing a strong opponent.
Arthur Currie was an okay general, but his real talent was cooking Indian food.
As I told the wife … the Navy whiners and complainers are JUNIOR … very young … very non-combative sailors. I suggested these girls most likely are assigned to toilet-cleaning duty, or they microwave the frozen dinners.
The Navy wouldn’t trust these kind of volunteers with anything more consequential.
Sorry. But they took the IQ tests … they had a chance to demonstrate their gifts and talents … so KP duty and janitorial services for the lot of em.
Our father was stationed in northern Ireland, on the west coast and flew over the North Atlantic, protecting the merchant marine ships and transports from the German wolf packs. He signed up just after war was declared, he was 19.5 years old and sent to officer training at UBC in Vancouver. After various courses and training, he was sent to northern Ireland for the balance of the war.
I am reminded of the Tom Hanks character in “A League of Their Own”, there is no crying (substitute complaining) in baseball!
Spouse’s uncle spent his war in the engine rooms of merchant ships crossing the Atlantic. He and the rest of the crew would have been much relieved when your father’s plane was spotted overhead.
I played a very small part in Gulf War 1 from Petawawa. Petawawa was the home base of the cadre of the field hospital that Canada deployed. My battalion provided the support element and base hospitals across the country provided the medical staff. LCpl Schmuckatelli’s story and variations on it were a daily occurrence.
The only thing of note about this whole event is that the media has taken it and turned it into something bigger than it was in order to put pressure on the administration. What’s new, they have done this since forever. Remember what Sherman said about journalists and the press?
It’s a well known fact that military complain about their living conditions, especially during operations because the pace can be pretty up tempo and the leave isn’t forthcoming; if they complain too much and too loudly then they will be counseled. It’s also a well known fact that families complain to the top about said living conditions. This has been the case since the beginning.
I vividly remember a mom asking the company XO about cell phone service so she could call her son; this was an infantry company that wasn’t going to be held in reserve… She wasn’t being a bad person nor unpatriotic; she just didn’t grasp the situation. And who could chastise her? Civilians don’t understand, and her motives were out of love and concern for her child. The XO had someone take her aside and explain there would probably not be good times to call, cell phone reception or not.
The only problem is when those journalists/media that Sherman was talking about take stories and run with them.
GYM has blown many sailors ashore.
His friends call him “Illwind”.