Personal Photo's from the Gulf

When we landed on the run way in Saudi Arabia, they sounded a Scud attack. We ran for the sides of the run way and put on our mask.

From there we rolled to tent city, and got our first sand storm on the

bus ride to the site. We stayed till Christmas, eating badly prepared

food - many got sick form the food and stayed in the latrines.

At Camp Thompson we endured cold wet weather, and the sand storms were a real pain. We waited, and some like myself were run into the ground day, and night while NCO's made us cater to them like they were royalty. They slept 8 to 10 hours when we slept 2, and they didnt raise a finger for anything. At no point did most the NCO's in my unit rate the treatement they forced, and this would become a serious

moral issue as they even stole our gift boxes from American well

wishers. At our unit many committed War Crimes against lower enlisted.

Once the ground war started, the rule was you fell behind - no one came for you. We knew this was true after aiding some 1st CAV tankers left behind.

It was comforting to be next to the General at times though, he had

the heavy equipment around him - like these Chaparral missile launchers.

The Iraqi equipment lay scattered everywhere, yet no one told us a

word about the DU rounds they shot them up with.

Mine fields were everywhere, and there was as many American ones

as there were Iraqi. We lost several tires to them.

The MLR's would launch around us by the hundreds, yet no one said

anything about the vapor trails being toxic.

The Oil Well fires kept the sky black, and you could feel the temperature drop thirty degrees in mid day. The tar would rain on us, and sometimes it seemed like night though it was noon.