Desert Storm - The Beginning

I remember it rather well. On Thursday, August 2, 1990 I was stationed with the 3rd ACR at Fort Bliss, Texas. I got home from work that day and was ready to settle in for an evening of television.

Being single, I lived on ramen noodles and tuna fish along with peanut butter. Good stuff, that was.

I was living in my first apartment, which I rented shortly after arriving in El Paso after three years in Augsburg, Germany. I had already been at Ft. Bliss before and asked to go back. I had friends there and I wanted to go someplace familiar.

I turned on the evening news in time to see the headlines of the day. Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein invaded and annexed their neighbor Kuwait. This action brought immediate and strong condemnation from most of the other countries of the world.

I remember thinking to myself that we were going over there. At least I was pretty sure the U.S. would end up sending troops over. I had no idea how big this was going to get and I certainly wasn't sure whether or not my unit would be sent over.

The next day all the talk was of the pending war. Many of the people I worked with were anxious to go. I was not. I knew the odds of the 3rd ACR going were pretty good, but nothing was certain. In those first days there was talk of 3 divisions being deployed, and those would probably deploy from Europe (since they were already half-way there). It took a few weeks for the full scope of the operation to take shape - and for the full scope of overwhelming force to be fully appreciated.

I don't remember when we got the official word we were going. It may have been up to a month later. We'd already started planning and packing "just in case." No sense in waiting until the last minute, "just in case," and it did keep us busy while we waited.

This is part 1 in a series. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19