| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2003 6:24 am Post subject: Marines in Desert Marshal the Tools of War |
| With regard to the Washington Post articles included below, it should make any patriotic American fume that radical JINSA Zionist Jews ( Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz who have never had any military experience but are ready to send Britain's and America's children to war) are scheming for their extremist (Israel first) JINSA Zionist agenda:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/04/radical-jinsa-zionists-at-pentagon-to-control-iraq.php
washingtonpost.com
Marines in Desert Marshal the Tools of War
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 29, 2003; Page A01 SOUTH OF THE IRAQI BORDER, Kuwait, Jan. 28 -- At a vast desert supply depot with columns of armored vehicles stretching across the horizon, newly arrived troops from the 1st Marine Division today began drawing the gear they would use if ordered to invade Iraq.
For the past week, about 500 Marine logistics specialists have worked around the clock, unloading, repairing and assembling enough equipment to supply a division of 17,000 for a month-long operation. This phase of the U.S. military buildup in Kuwait, although unglamorous, is among the most important should the troops be sent to war, Marines here said.
"We have a saying that amateurs talk tactics and professionals talk logistics," said Maj. David Nathanson, 33, of Newark, a logistics officer for the 7th Marine Regiment who is supervising the equipment assembly line. "The work often falls outside the spotlight, but behind the scenes is a huge effort that can make all the difference. Without all the right parts, a tank is just 70 tons of steel."
Hundreds of Marines, many of whom arrived in Kuwait just three days ago, spent the day testing their gear and taking inventory to make sure everything they will need is in place. They are joining several thousand Marines already in Kuwait from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Many of the Marines seemed excited about getting their hands on the equipment for the first time. "It's like getting a new car," said Lance Cpl. Brandon Hillenbrand, 22, from San Diego, as he sat on the front of his M-1A1 Abrams tank, tearing through sealed packages of tank tools and brand new .50-caliber machine guns. "Having newer stuff should mean it's more likely to work."
The Marines have staged thousands of tons of equipment in areas where it can be more quickly transported to deploying troops than if it were stored at bases in the United States. Civilian container ships loaded with such pre-positioned gear steamed into the Persian Gulf from the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean and arrived at a port near Kuwait City early last week. Marine logistics specialists met the ships and hauled away the cargo, which included: stuffed shipping containers and steel mesh "shark cages" for bundling in smaller equipment, Abrams tanks, Amtrak Amphibious Assault Vehicles, seven-ton trucks, M-198 howitzer artillery pieces and hundreds of Humvee four-wheel drive vehicles. They brought the equipment to this staging area, called the Arrival Assembly Operations Element, in the northern Kuwaiti desert.
The Marines had dipped deeply enough into their stores to include green camouflage gear, better suited for use in Europe or Africa, in addition to desert tans more appropriate for the Persian Gulf region. By the time units arrived today to pick up their gear, most of the vehicles had been inspected and marked with chalk as "good to go" or, in a few cases, as needing new parts.
This marks the first time the Marines have made use of pre-positioned equipment in a non-training operation since the invasion of Somalia in 1993, Nathanson said. Under a program started in the early 1980s to make them more mobile, the Marines maintain three pre-positioned squadrons, numbering four to six vessels each. One squadron is based in the Indian Ocean on the island of Diego Garcia, one in the Mediterranean and the other in the Pacific Ocean at Guam. The gear goes to Marines deploying far from their main bases on the East and West coasts of the United States and in Okinawa, Japan. Logistics specialists have unloaded equipment from one squadron and have begun work on a second.
Logistics officers said that because the pre-positioned equipment is regularly upgraded but less frequently used than gear that Marines train with at home, it is generally in impeccable condition. Nathanson said that of the gear that has been offloaded over the past week, more than 96 percent was found to be in full working order.
As the new troops arrived, the assembly point was among their first stops and a precursor to any major training. Today, two companies from the 1st Tank Battalion, comprising 64 Abrams tanks, carefully inspected their armored behemoths and swapped parts before driving them off to their posts in the desert.
Overseeing the 16 tank crews of Delta Company was Gunnery Sgt. Scott Martin, 36, of Manhattan, Kan., who was last in Kuwait as a tank commander in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "The tanks we bring into battle are the best in the history of warfare," he said. "But to get the most out of them, this period of checking them and testing them is critical. We go over them backwards and forwards."
Once all the Marines from the 1st Division have collected their equipment, the logistics specialists' job changes. In the event of an invasion, they would be responsible for working with each unit to ensure it has enough equipment as the operation unfolds. "We'd be involved all the way through, providing support for the frontline units," Nathanson said. "We figure out where is the best place to deliver things, so that when a unit says 'we need this,' we're right there to hand it to them."
During the Gulf War, U.S. forces spent months in the desert preparing to expel Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait. But many of the Marines drawing gear today said the massive offloading of equipment was a sign that this time they might see action sooner, rather than later.
"The Marines don't uncoil all their gear lightly," said Alpha tank company Staff Sgt. Alfonso Davis, 41, of Mobile, Ala. "Once we lay it all out like this, things tend to get going pretty quick. We're hoping a decision is made soon, so we know our course of action."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20918-2003Feb3.html
Troops in Kuwait, at the Edge of War
Marines Find Time Is of the Essence Near Front Lines By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 4, 2003; Page A17 LSA-7, Kuwait -- As teenagers, Michael Belcher and Anthony M. Henderson walked the same Washington-area streets and played sports for nearby high schools, Oxon Hill in Belcher's case and Bishop McNamara in Henderson's. Today, they find themselves together on less familiar ground, leading a different type of team.The two D.C.-area natives are the officers in charge of roughly 1,000 troops of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. Based here at the northernmost camp for U.S. forces in Kuwait, called LSA-7 for Life Support Area, their unit helps form what the military calls the "tip of the spear." Along with elements of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, the 7th Marines are expected to provide a big part of the initial thrust into Iraq if a ground attack is ordered."We would be a lead unit," said Maj. Henderson, 36, the battalion's executive officer. Most of his troops arrived in Kuwait in the last week and were quickly shuttled to this remote desert camp, about 45 miles north of Kuwait City. "We haven't been here long, but being at the front means you get ready quick."Less than a mile north of this sprawling tent city is a line in the sand U.S. ground troops will cross if they get orders to invade Iraq. Beyond that boundary is no man's land -- terrain in plain sight of Iraqi reconnaissance forces just across the border on Safwan Hill.LSA-7 has grown from a company of just more than 100 soldiers about 10 days ago to a cast of thousands. Some of the 7th Marine regiment, based at 29 Palms, Calif., is still on its way. When all the units are in place, the camp will house a regimental combat team of several thousand Marines, dozens of tanks and amphibious assault vehicles, and an artillery battery.Marines here talk frequently of their proximity to the border and the immediacy of the mission at hand. Weapons are loaded and training is constant, with almost no down time. For safety, the routes, positions, and timing of perimeter patrols change daily.Comforts are few. For the Marines' first 10 days here, there was no electricity and no showers, and even now each can only be used sporadically. There is still no facility for hot food; there are no telephones to call home; and there is no PX to buy personal supplies. The only exercise equipment is a wooden pull-up bar built by two Marines from Lima company, the first group to arrive in camp.Reminders of the proximity of the frontline are everywhere. Two days ago, a pair of mines were found on a regularly traveled road leading from LSA-7 toward Camp Coyote, another Marine outpost. Every few hours fighter jets roar overhead toward the "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq. Daily drills, sometimes unannounced, are conducted to simulate chemical and biological strikes. And two M93A1 Fox vehicles, tasked with speeding just ahead of frontline troops to detect any unconventional threat, are permanently stationed here.At dusk, Marines guarding the perimeter in foxholes rimmed with sandbags and old tires feel as if "the whole world is behind you, and the Iraqi army could come in from the front at any time," one lance corporal said.Conversations rarely extend beyond when an invasion might be ordered. Last week, one Marine started a pool on when troops would cross the border. More than 50 of his fellow soldiers put down their predictions, which ranged from Friday until the end of March.But while the commanders stress that the troops' bags are permanently packed to "go north," the camp's infrastructure is still getting up to speed. A makeshift combat operations center has just a few laptop computers and four phone lines, but those numbers will more than double by the time the center is fully functional. Internet connections have not yet been established.A new computer system that allows commanders to use sensors mounted in combat vehicles to track the progress of their frontline units is not yet on line. The intelligence tent is stacked with unpacked boxes."For now, we get our intel off the radio," said Lance Cpl. Zachary Hall, 22, of Fort Worth, Tex., who works in the three-tent operations center.Master Gunnery Sgt. Gus Black, the regimental operations chief, said the center should be completely ready in a matter of days. Black, 43, of St. Louis, has been here before. As part of a Special Forces unit during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he pursued retreating Iraqis through northern Kuwait to Safwan Hill, before receiving a cease-fire order. This time, he said, he hopes the Marines under his command will "finish the job we started."Training for that mission began in earnest Saturday, with the first live-fire exercises. The 3rd Battalion weapons company left in a convoy just before noon for a desert firing range some 40 miles away. Mortar men practiced leaping from the back of jeeps to set up their tubes and fire 81mm shells. Anti-armor teams shot TOW missiles at makeshift targets that simulate tank movements.Marines here will spend the next 10 days shooting M-16s and .50-caliber machine guns, launching artillery and recalibrating the scopes on equipment that has been packed away on ships for months."We're going to bust a little rust off the weapons," said Belcher, 41, a lieutenant colonel and the commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion.After this deployment, he said, he hopes to return to Washington. He and Henderson, his deputy, frequented some of the same haunts off of Southern Avenue but never met until June, when Henderson joined the battalion at 29 Palms.Henderson said his 13-year-old son, Andrue, is used to his father being away on deployments, but for his daughters, Daphnie and Carmen, 4 and 1 respectively, this is "the first time daddy had to go away."Belcher has no children , but said "I feel like I have 850 kids here." | |  | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
