Storm on the Horizon : Khafji--The Battle That Changed the Course of the Gulf War

by David J. Morris

• ISBN13: 9780743235570
• ISBN10: 0743235576
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-27
• Publisher: Free Press

Summary

Storm on the Horizon is the little-known story of the key land battle of Desert Storm: the Battle for Khafji -- and how that engagement has become part of military history. Combining some of the most powerful writing on war ever with a Marine's eyeview of combat, former Marine officer David J. Morris has brilliantly recreated this crucial battle that nearly changed the outcome of the Persian Gulf War. Storm on the Horizon is war writing at its finest.On January 29, 1991, Saddam Hussein launched his three best armored divisions across the Kuwaiti border and into the Islamic Holy Land of Saudi Arabia. Their mission: to disrupt the massive U.S.-led Coalition preparing to evict them from Kuwait, and to bloody the Americans on CNN. Caught without warning in the path of this juggernaut were scattered groups of lightly armed U.S. Marines and Special Forces soldiers. Storm on the Horizon is the gripping and compelling story of how these elite fighting men escaped the Iraqi onslaught and reversed the assault with an unprecedented combination of high-tech weaponry and American know-how. This is the story of the first battle of the smart-bomb age.Storm on the Horizon drops you in the middle of the most intense battle of the Persian Gulf War. The Marines are trapped and outnumbered, their weapons no match against the Iraqi tanks bearing down on them. Their only lifeline to the rear is a barely functioning radio. Drawing upon extensive veteran interviews and previously classified reports, David J. Morris's vivid minute-by-minute narrative takes you through the battle from its beginning as a scattered collection of skirmishes to its fiery final act in the streets of the abandoned Saudi Arabian town of Khafji. Morris captures this ordeal through the eyes of the men who were there, giving readers a rare front-row seat to an incredible sequence of events. Max Morton, the pilot of a Cobra attack helicopter is forced to make an emergency landing in the heart of Khafji as the Iraqis are attacking. He and his crew narrowly escape after locating a tank of mystery fuel at a local oil refinery. Medic Kevin Callahan, member of a team of Marines caught behind enemy lines, watches helplessly as a female U.S. Army soldier and her male comrade are captured by Iraqi soldiers and spirited to Baghdad. Ronald Tull, suffering untold wounds, wakes up next to his burning light-armored vehicle thinking that it has been struck by an enemy tank round. Only later does he learn the full horror of the events that led up to the death of his seven buddies who were on board.But Storm on the Horizon is far more than a battle saga. It is a thoughtful examination of a new generation of fighting men coming to terms with its own war, a journey into the minds of men under supreme stress, and a heartfelt account of the innocence lost in a heartbeat and mourned for a lifetime.At once an unflinching chronicle of men at war and an appalling tableau, Storm on the Horizon looks into the savage heart of modern combat and raises troubling questions about the era of conflict that lies ahead.

Author Biography

David J. Morris is a former Marine infantry officer. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University and holds an advanced degree in English from San Diego State University. His work has appeared in Salon and Rock and Ice magazines. He lives in San Diego, California

Table of Contents

Dramatis Personae	p. xi
Preface	p. xv
Prologue: 8:00 P.M., January 29, 1991, Observation Post 4, on the Kuwaiti Border Fifty Miles West of Khafji	p. 1
The Outpost Battles
The Persian Gulf Theater, Winter 1991	p. 9
Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Japan, July-August 1990	p. 15
January 19, 1991, Northeastern Saudi Arabia	p. 30
6:00 P.M., January 29, 1991, Observation Post 4	p. 37
8:20 P.M., January 29, 1991, Observation Post 4	p. 53
Approximately 8:45 P.M., January 29, 1991, the Berm, Observation Post 4	p. 60
9:00 P.M., January 29, 1991, the Berm, Observation Post 4	p. 66
Approximately 9:00 P.M., January 29, 1991, Observation Post 4	p. 74
Nighttime, January 29, 1991, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 250 Miles South of Observation Post 4	p. 79
Approximately 9:15 P.M., January 29, 1991, Observation Post 4	p. 83
Approximately 9:30 P.M., January 29, 1991, Observation Post 4	p. 98
12:45 A.M., January 30, Observation Post 4	p. 107
Dawn, January 29, 1991, Just South of the Kuwaiti Border	p. 114
The Battle for Khafji
6:45 A.M., January 29, 1991, Observation Post 8, Six Miles North of Khafji	p. 129
January 29, 1991, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Intelligence Group Forward Headquarters, Four Miles North of Khafji	p. 144
9:00 P.M., January 29, 1991, Khafji	p. 159
Morning, January 30, 1991, Khafji	p. 170
Mid-Morning, January 30, 1991, Khafji	p. 180
2nd Saudi Arabian National Guard Brigade Headquarters, Five Miles West of Mishab	p. 186
11:00 P.M., January 30, 1991, on the Coastal Highway Just South of Khafji	p. 214
Nighttime, January 30, 1991, Five Miles Northwest of Khafji	p. 231
Dawn, January 31, 1991, Khafji	p. 242
7:00 A.M., January 31, 1991, Khafji	p. 247
Epilogue	p. 273
Where Are They Now?	p. 281
Roster of the Fallen	p. 284
U.S. Marine Corps Key Words and Acronyms	p. 285
Sources	p. 287
Notes	p. 293
Acknowledgments	p. 305
Index	p. 307
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Prologue 8:00 PM, January 29, 1991Observation Post 4, on the Kuwaiti Border 50 Miles West of Khafji Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us...Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent...Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient...Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,But nothing happens. Wilfred Owen, "Exposure"Darkness falls fast in the desert. It is this time, soon after the light has gone, that a man can feel most alone. The blackness envelops him, denying him sight, severing or diminishing his connection with those around him. Nevertheless, Lieutenant Stephen Ross and his platoon sergeant Greg Gillispie were in good spirits as they sat improbably perched in brightly colored aluminum beach chairs atop a large earthen berm. They'd stolen the beach chairs from some rear-area types before striking out into the heart of the Arabian desert to occupy the border-police post that was their home, their fighting position, and their desert redoubt all rolled into one. They peered into the belly of Kuwait through high-tech night-vision goggles. An utterly desiccated sandscape, flat as a billiard table, stretched off as far as the eye could see.They were happy because tomorrow morning they, along with the rest of their platoon, were going to be relieved and would finally get a chance to grab a shower and maybe a camel burger at the PX trailers that had been set up in the rear. They'd been out at Observation Post 4, one of the most remote outposts in the Marine sector, encircled by the sands, for nearly two weeks now and were running low on chow and water. OP 4 was one of those places in the war that Marines got dropped into that didn't really exist in the normal sense. You pulled out the map sheet marked "Umm Hjul," and it was just a bunch of empty grid squares with barely a feature or contour line on the entire page, devoid of even the most basic landmarks to orient yourself save the sun, the blank horizon, and the small cluster of spartan buildings that comprised the border fort.Battalion headquarters had been putting them off for some time, saying, "Tomorrow you'll be relieved." So far there'd been three "tomorrow" calls this week. They'd been hung out there for so long that the cryptographic fills for their radios had expired, forcing them to talk "in the plain," leaving them perilously exposed to Iraqi eavesdropping -- not a minor concern. Staff Sergeant Gillispie had been up and down the border to the other Marine outposts innumerable times on scrounging missions, trading what he could for field rations, water, and extra gear. But even for a crafty devil with beaucoup connections like Gillispie, karma eventually runs out. However, this most recent promise from Battalion seemed solid, and Ross had decided to consolidate his two northernmost positions in order to expedite the morning turnover.Still, until they were relieved, they had a job to do. They were recon, the eyes and ears of the First Marine Division, there to provide early warning in case the Iraqis started acting up and to collect the deserters who had been crossing over through no-man's-land in increasing numbers since the air war started two weeks prior. In the words of a division staff officer, their mission was to "see, scream, and scram"; that is, they were to observe and report any enemy activity and if threatened by a large enough force, they were to evacuate with utmost haste. To this end, Lieutenant Ross had designated a fallback point in the event they were overrun. Should everything go to shit, a small, horseshoe-shaped berm 500 meters behind their position would be their safe harbor. From there they would regroup and make their way to friendly lines by whatever means necessary.Ross and Gillispie had deployed the platoon in three teams each with a full complement of night-vision and spotting