![]() ![]() As soon as the vehicles were ready, the regiment began the movement towards the Kuwaiti border to begin final training prior to the attack day, known as “G-Day.” In a stunning mishap during one such exercise, McMaster came within a hair’s breadth of missing the attack altogether! Within a month we were unloading our tanks and other armored vehicles off huge transport ships in the Saudi Arabian port of Al Jubayl. In November 1990 the potential turned into reality as the Secretary of Defense ordered the 2nd ACR to Saudi Arabia to potentially lead the U.S. It is possible that the next operations order I give will be in the sands of Iraq.” There was an eerie sense of foreboding as he spoke because we all realized that what had just a few days ago seemed like another routine military maneuver might now be a final preparation for actual combat operations. Prior to the maneuver, McMaster addressed his troops and solemnly said, “Men, we must take very seriously what we are about to do. Macgregor, adjusted our training to reflect the possibility we-as one of the forward-deployed armored cavalry organizations tasked with making first contact against enemy armored formations-would be called upon to fight Saddam’s troops. ![]() At the end of the operation, Iraqi tanks were a mere three miles from the Saudi border-representing a dagger at the throat of the oil supply on which most of the Western world depended.Īlmost immediately then-Captain McMaster, commander of Eagle Troop, and Squadron operations officer, then-Major Douglas A. Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, had actually done what we feared the Soviets might do: he sent hundreds of tanks and other armored vehicles flooding across their southern border with Kuwait in an unexpected attack and quickly subdued the Kuwait military. The training was realistic and closely replicated the actual combat conditions we would face had the Russians ever crossed the border and attacked the West.īefore we left our assembly areas for the operation, however, something happened halfway across the world that distracted us from our preparation. unit role-playing as a Russia tank brigade, followed by firing live ammunition from the move on a huge firing range. On August 2, 1990, I and my Eagle Troop brothers were at Grafenwoehr preparing for a major exercise in which we would maneuver our nine M1 tanks and twelve Bradleys throughout the German countryside against another armored U.S. ![]()
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