European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 18, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                This Fri ipe Gulf War continued from Page 59 in the 100-hour ground War half from Friendly fire. Crawley had been writing daily reports on the units activities and making two Carbon copies. He kept one sent another by courier to the military censors Back in Dhahran and mailed the third to the papers Gulf news Bureau. It proved to be a smart move Only one of the several articles he dispatched to military censors Ever made it to the stars and stripes. When the cease fire was called on feb. 28, Crawley flew Back to Dhahran spent five Days rewriting his War dispatches into features then finally flew Home to Germany. He has since left his Nimberg Bureau Job to serve As a general assignments reporter in Griesheim. George Manes his Bureau staff scattered in various combat pools spent most of the ground War alone handling daily Pool reports and other information trickling in from the coalition press Center in Dhahran. On the night of feb. 25, the air raid sirens wailed for what would be iraqis 70th scud missile attack and Manes went up on the roof of the news Bureau to watch the show. The missiles almost All of them fired at night had caused widespread panic but Little else. Two civilians had been killed in attacks on Israel and one had died in Riyadh but most of the scuds had exploded harmlessly in the desert or fallen in the Gulf. As Manes watched one of the incoming missiles broke apart in flight and a Large glowing Section crashed with a tremendous fireball about half a mile away. Seconds later an explosion Shook the House and Manes jumped into his leased car and sped toward the flames. He found the site in minutes. By Blind sick Luck the incredibly inaccurate missile had found a target. What had been a temporary Barracks housing 120 soldiers was now a soldering blackened wreck of twisted Metal. A soldiers were running everywhere a Manes remembers a soot covered frantic. The far end of the Structure was still ablaze and a Cage where ammunition was stored was burning especially  a maybe its the overwhelming tragedy of events like this that prompt us to focus on the minutiae a Manes later wrote for the paper. A a it Sas if the big picture is too gruesome to comprehend so we Are drawn instead to the Little Manas president Bush with american troops during his thanksgiving Day visit to the quit. Ken Georgo symbols. For me it was the letters and the shoes. A How could there be so much mail i wondered pieces of Sodden and singed paper were everywhere. It was As if the building had been picked up and shaken violently and the last thing to Settle out were the letters. And the shoes. There seemed to be hundreds of them some wedged Between the cots and Rucksacks others floating in the shallow muck. How would the soldiers Ever get Back their shoes i asked myself not yet realizing it did no to  dodging exploding ammunition Manes helped pull a half dozen corpses from the wreckage stacking the bodies in neat rows in a nearby parking lot. In All 28 americans were killed in the attack and dozens More were injured. It was the sole time an iraqi missile hit a military target during the War. Following the cease fire most of the staff ended up in Kuwait. One draw was simple curiosity the need to finally see the country that had prompted All the fuss. Another was just North of Kuwait City on the Highway to Basra where coalition aircraft had trapped a fleeing column of iraqi troops. Perhaps As Many As 5,000 iraqis were killed in the air attack and hundreds of their vehicles from soviet made tanks to hijacked kuwaiti school buses remained where they a crashed forming a grisly gridlock of death. The scene remains one of the lasting images of the War. The ensuing year has been no less dramatic. Immediately following the War fresh staffers were sent to the Gulf to cover troop withdrawals and the yearlong Effort to extinguish hundreds of iraqi set Oil fires in Kuwait. Reporters John Millar Luke Britt and Chuck Roberts would tally five months of duty in the Middle East before y i finally closing stripes venerable Dhahran news Bureau. Mediterranean Bureau chief j. King Cruger followed by Ron Jensen and Joseph Owen covered operation provide Comfort in Turkey and Northern Iraq As coalition forces hammered out a Security zone for kurdish refugees. Visits by photographers Gus Schuettler and Ken George yielded enough photos for two poignant special editions on the Aid Effort which did not fully close Down until july 1991. The staff covered dozens of Homecoming ceremonies As Europe based troops began returning from the Gulf and investigated several Friendly fire Georg incidents that occurred during desert storm including two that killed Germany based troops. The big Story however was the Start of troop withdrawals which followed word that the military planned to Cut its forces in Europe to 150,000. The troop draw Down is a Story that has hit the stars and stripes especially close to Home. Circulation which peaked at 200,000 during the Gulf War has dropped to 90,000 As european continued on Page 62 Millar Britt Roberts Cruger lit 0 my allies liberate Kuwait City air Force a-10 attack kills 9 britons jepsr.-t-.