On a cool and sunny Friday afternoon, local veterans came together at the Veterans Memorial in downtown Huntsville, Ala., to remember a short-lived war that continues to carry significance in furthering the nation's development of precision weapons.
It's been 25 years since the U.S. led coalition forces to liberate Kuwait and defend its interests in the Middle East in a fast-paced show of military force that is known as Operation Desert Storm. Leaders of the Redstone-Huntsville Chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army recognized the anniversary with a commemorative event on Friday that was attended by several Operation Desert Storm veterans, including retired Lt. Gen. Jim Link, state Sen. Bill Holtzclaw, Madison Mayor Troy Trulock and members of the Patriot Guard Riders.
While Operation Desert Storm is significant to the nation's legacy as a world leader, it is also significant in the history of Huntsville because many of the area's engineers worked on the development of the missile systems that won the war, said Brig. Gen. Bill Cole, who, as the new deputy program executive officer for the Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space, represented Team Redstone at the commemoration.
Operation Desert Storm is "where modern precision weapons were commonly used and many of those were developed here," Cole told the veterans and families in attendance. "In that way, this area and that conflict are explicably linked."
Cole recounted his sudden deployment as a Field Artillery officer in August 1990 during Operation Desert Shield, which was followed by several months of training in the Arabian Desert as the U.S. built a coalition and sought a peaceful resolution to the war build-up.
Although conditions were not the best and the heat was exhausting (120 degrees at times), Cole said his unit -- Battery C, 3rd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment -- managed to have some fun. He recalled how, on the first day of combined training with French forces, Soldiers were able to convince the French to trade rations.
"We had heard that the French rations were excellent. So, we happily traded our MREs for French boxes of crackers and cuisine. We had vegetables with exotic seasoning and delicious jams. We loved the French food," he said. "On the second day, the French were as professional as ever but they politely refused to trade rations."
As U.S. citizens watched the use of smart munitions in the war as reported on nightly newscasts, Cole and his unit heard or saw those significant moments during every night of the war.
"On opening day of the war (Feb. 25) we heard the Scud missiles launched at U.S. troop locations and then heard our troops firing back with the Patriot missile, which intercepted the Scud missile in flight and detonated it," he said. "That happened almost nightly during the opening weeks.
"We were staying north of Dhahran (in Saudi Arabia). The idea that we had a missile that was fast enough to intercept another missile in flight was remarkable at that time."
It was the engineers at Redstone Arsenal that turned the idea into reality, he said.
Cole also recalled a fellow comrade who, as an Apache pilot, worked with his co-pilot to take out Iraqi missiles and radars.
"Saddam lined the border of Iraq with air defense missiles and radars," he said. "These Apache pilots flew at a high speed just off the desert floor at night until they were in range of the Iraqi radars, and then they fired their Hellfire missiles at those radars. Without the radars, the Iraqis were blinded and the Iraqi missiles were useless. The Apache pilots opened the border for the Air Force to go in and bomb Iraq."
Cole also saw the work of the Multiple Launch Rocket System when fired at Iraqi targets 18 miles away.
Patriot, Hellfire, MLRS and other missiles led to the "collapse and surrender" of Iraq after only 100 hours of the ground war.
"The hard work of this community directly resulted in fewer casualties and helped to shorten the conflict," Cole said.
Madison mayor Trulock also shared an account from the war when, as a young captain with a Patriot unit on the border of Iraq, he was forced to trust in the ingenuity and skill of engineers from Huntsville, Ala., who visited his unit to install new software on the Patriot missile system to make it capable of defending against Scud missiles.
"I wanted to make sure we could defend against the threat. I was sure this new software was proven and would take care of us," he said, only to learn the software had not been completely tested because it had to be quickly fielded in support of the war.
Soon, Scud missiles were flying over Trulock's unit. Then, a Scud missile came in at his unit and was successfully defended by a Patriot missile. Over the course of the war, Trulock went from being in fear of not knowing if the Patriot software would work to being 100 percent confident in the new Scud-busting technology.
To this day, Trulock is grateful for the talented and smart employees of Redstone Arsenal who developed the Patriot and made it successful in its mission.
"If the system didn't work, all of us there would have been a piece of sand," he said.
But despite the technology and strength of the U.S.-led coalition forces, some Soldiers were killed.
Before giving the innovation, Chaplain (Col.) Jack Shedd of the Space and Missile Defense Command called out the names of seven colleagues from the 27th Engineer Battalion who were killed on Feb. 26, 1991. Capt. Mario Fajardo, Lt. Terry Lawrence Plunk, Sgt. Class Russell G. Smith, Staff Sgt. Michael Harris, Sgt. Brian Patrick Scott, Pfc. Jerry Leon King and Cpl. Luis Robert Delgado were killed at As Aslman, Iraq, as they were clearing an airfield for C-130 airplanes to land for resupply and medical evacuation.
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