European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 05, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Is. If Aid. Elf it Tion Gay Ling. 25 my a rom. Cd at 3dt, 3 a a bile he Ger for 3�?Tre in of 5cud As Voith the Headquarters company that trailed most of the a ,. Icon Bat units Quot the impression s through / ,smoking iraqi equipment everywhere Are Indel Bly marked in my mind said. Quot there Are no words Ito describe a the destruction that occurred out there. A Aker the War Thiffault helped guard enemy prisoners of and once while taking a walk just outside the 2nd. Quot amid div s perimeter he came across iraqis. He. Walked up to them and asked what they were doing so close to the american Camp ,. A they said they wore students but see Liat looked like at uniform under their ,&Quot Thiffault said. Quot so i cased Back to the Camp and told the maps. They went out and. Brought them Back. Sure enough they were iraqi soldiers. Arnold Weber who also went to the Gulf in january is an cafes employee from Japan who worked just behind. The . Lines in the King Khalid. Military a civilian you you re going to be a target Quot he said so we did t were in danger until we got. Therea. Scud missiles did away with the secure feeling Weber said. The missiles random nature had a sobering effect. I think Many civilians a volunteered thinking they were Safe a he said Quot once the War started some May have a. Changed their minds. I feel my company did right by us but others May have wanted More Money or wanted to leave got a a a a a. In spite of the risks they volunteered to take Thiffault and Weber said they heard very few complaints from civilians in the Field during the War. David Summers went to the persian Gulf because his unit was asked to go. Quot i really can to say that volunteered Quot said Summers an a a armament munitions chemical come civilian with the .12th aviation brigade at Wiesbaden a Germany. A Quot i just knew that i if my unit went. If my unit had t gone i would t have volunteered. A Summers 50, assists the brigade with its Apache helicopters. A a a a a a. He was in saudi Arabia from sept. 18 to dec. 20 and a had difficulty adjusting to has accommodations thousand other people in the parking garage of an Airfield 40 Miles North of Dhahran. Little did i was where i was going to sleep Quot continued on Page 16 n to i Don t think to b a target t fee we were in we j of there d we cafes employee in t be on the �3 song a the ath civilian Harry Rennison was on the euphrates River in Iraq when he Learned of his songs death. A amps Gary Pomeroy and added a few Choice comments of his own the. Older went to the Back of the plane Quot and that was the St we saw of him Quot Harry said. A Atter the funeral Harry returned to Fulda Germany j Here to received a quiet Welcome. A. German friends and neighbors scrapped plans Quot for a a a party Quot when my boy died Quot he said. Quot instead the urn was very Low key. Neighbors came Over one at a be and. Talked Quot a. A a. A. G p. A a he a a t v Vav in october the aircraft Carrier Independence became first . Carrier in the persian Gulf in16 Navy and desert Stoi sea Force May have to rethink its strategies by Melissa Healy los Angeles times or most of the armed services the persian Gulf War was More than just a Job a it was a Chance to strut their stuff and almost every. Branch emerged from the War with new Luster the air Force for example All but disproved the Post Vietnam Tenet mat air Power alone cannot dictate the out Cogie of a War. The army came Back confident that its new High tech weapons were not the duds that critics had claimed. Even the Marine corps a though mainly left out at sea awaiting an amphibious Landing that never came a made headlines on Shore the leathernecks were instrumental in winning Back Kuwait City. ,. Not so the Navy. While air Force f-117 stealth fighters dropped precision guided weapons Down carefully photographed iraqi chimneys the Navy s pilots were a saturating Basra and Kuwait with Iron bombs and Cluster munitions that brought accusations of brutality and unnecessary civilian deaths. In Early efforts to target. Bridges in the theater Many of the Navy a unguided Iron bombs failed to hit the Mark and the air Force was sent in. To finish the Job. A. Y i a and at least 30 percent of the Navy aircraft in the kuwaiti theater were tied up defending the Carrier task Force unfortunately for the admirals All this comes at a time when the Pentagon s civilian leaders Are assessing the missions and budgets of the military services in an Effort to Cope with the rapid Quot build Down Quot of defense spending that Congress has ordered the dwindling pot of defense funds has set off a scramble among the services to protect and Quot expand their shares while the persian Gulf War is not expected to reverse major budgetary decisions it clearly. Has provided the army and air Force some guarantee that their positions will not . But the Blue water Navy which already us under orders to Cut its Fleet of aircraft 12 from 14. May not be Able Tefend off further cuts by Congress sen Edward m Kennedy. A mass a chairman of the Senate armed services committee s sea Power subcommittee and a longtime advocate of a smaller Carrier Fleet has Carlod crewmen aboard the aircraft Carrier Eisenhower work on a Jet As a helicopter lands on deck. Hearings on the role of carriers in the Gulf War to to sure not All the shortcomings cited in the Navy s As serious of they sound although concerned about the Public relations aspect of such charges,.Navy officials argue that Many of the criticisms Are easy to remedy. For example increasing the stockpile of Quot smart bombs Quot requires Only the Purchase of a inexpensive kits Quot that enable pilots to guide Iron bombs a by lasers a and the admirals maintain that the Navy could a expand its role for future operations by employing the proposed now a aircraft which Are i Signi d for both _ fighter and bomber missions. The a a or structured. Version of the a-12 that Dick Cheney i a cancelled a would replace the aging a g with a longer Range More versatile aircraft than the Navy , to Field in the Gulf ,.using radar evading stealth a a a a technology in april the service won Cheney s approval to develop the a a a. A. A Quot moreover the Navy s defenders contend that the Carrier action a though Long regarded As the Cornerstone of the a modern Navy a was Only a Small part of the service s Overall contribution to the Gulf action and that to judge the Navy solely on its performance during the air and ground War understates its role Quot we were out doing our own thing a interdiction operations and contributing to the air War Quot one naval officer says. A -. There Are these examples a. A naval Critor option of Iraq bound stepping during the first six months of the. In s deployment a Jod whittle Iraq s Supply Linos and cripple the iraqi Economy by the a. Ii. I i on Page 16 Day,4fe 5, Iggy the stars and stripes Page 15
