My Desert Storm

On Feb. 26, 1991, our 132 troopers, equipped with nine M1A1 Abrams tanks and 12 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, moved east across the featureless Iraqi Desert. Eagle Troop was leading the so-called left hook, a massive envelopment attack, to crush Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and liberate Kuwait. In a furious 23-minute battle, Eagle Troop destroyed a much larger defending enemy force while suffering no casualties.

The Battle of 73 Easting demonstrated that there is good reason behind our military’s emphasis on initiative, rapid decision-making, and quick action. Combat is unforgiving; the stakes are high. Hesitation in battle can be fatal because hesitation creates opportunities for the enemy and gives the enemy the chance to seize the initiative. West Point and ROTC cadets learn that commanders who were overly cautious or slow to make decisions missed opportunities or met defeat. Most officers are familiar with Napoleon’s famous quip: “I may lose a battle, but I will never lose a minute.” And Gen. George S. Patton summed up his view on the need to act quickly — “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

But speed of action is not easy to achieve. The Battle of 73 Easting reveals 10 ways that leaders can prepare and condition their organizations to take initiative.

1. Leaders must create a culture that encourages initiative and risk-taking. The Second Cavalry Regiment’s commander, Col. Don Holder, made his expectations clear before we left Germany for Saudi Arabia in November 1990: “Because tight centralized control of operations isn’t possible or desirable … all regimental leaders must train their juniors to do the right things and then trust them to act independently.”

2. Learn from history and the experiences of others. As our cavalry troop prepared for desert warfare in Iraq, our executive officer, 1st Lt. John Gifford, looked to Maj. Gen. Ernest Harmon’s notes on combat actions in Tunisia and North Africa in the first battles of World War II. Harmon, a cavalry officer who became one of the very best division commanders, emphasized speed of action: “Tank battles are usually won by the tanker who gets the first shot in. Speed and accuracy are essential. … Weapons must be worked at night and under heavy fire with speed, accuracy and without second thought — automatically.”

We focused on the crew drills and battle drills that condition teams to respond immediately and together to predictable circumstances in combat. That focus would pay off.

3. Ensure that the team understands the objective, and share the big picture with them. In the hours before we attacked into Iraq on Feb. 23, 1991, I met with our platoons individually to describe the overall air and ground offensive designed to liberate Kuwait. Every one of our 136 cavalry troopers understood that they were part of an offensive covering force mission forward of Gen. Frederick Franks’s VII Corps. They knew that they were at the tip of the spear and had the mission of finding the Iraqi Republican Guard main defenses and pulling the armored divisions behind us into battle under advantageous conditions. But they also knew that they were far from alone. When Eagle Troop encountered the Republican Guard, we knew that we had the coalition air force above us, fellow cavalry troops beside us, and responsive artillery support as well as an armored corps behind us.

4. Get to know, coordinate with, and learn from units on your ‘flank.’ Just before sunset on Feb. 25, G Troop, commanded by my West Point classmate Capt. Joe Sartiano, encountered an enemy reconnaissance unit of about 12 small armored personnel carriers. They were Republican Guard vehicles. G Troop brought the captured vehicles to the squadron command post so we could examine maps and the condition of the weapons and equipment, some of which were brand new. We learned we had hit the Republican Guard’s scouts. Enemy main defenses were close. After a night of heavy rain, we moved eastward through thick fog, with Sartiano’s troop to our north. As the fog lifted, high winds and a sandstorm replaced it; visibility remained limited to very short distances. We had a few of these new GPS devices, but they only worked part of the day.

Our scouts coordinated closely across a boundary that delineated our Second Squadron’s zone of attack and Third Squadron’s zone. Navigating through a sandstorm using dead-reckoning in a featureless desert put a premium on coordination so as not to confuse friend for foe.

5. Lead from the front. It was just after 4 p.m. on Feb. 26; we began moving in a formation called a modified column security right. One scout platoon led with three scout sections of two cavalry fighting vehicles each in a “vee” formation. The other scout platoon moved along our southern flank, with guns oriented south to cover the gap between us and Third Squadron, which was moving behind us to our south. Our mortar section followed First Platoon, with our tanks behind the mortars.

Because we had no maps of the area, we were unaware that we were paralleling a road that ran west to east along our boundary with Third Squadron. The road ran through a small village and then into Kuwait. We also did not know that we were entering an Iraqi training ground occupied by a brigade of the Tawakalna Division, which had received the mission of halting our advance into Kuwait. But I sensed that contact was imminent and told the troop to expect contact soon. It would have been impossible to gain that intuitive sense from a distance or through reports.

6. Do not be intimidated by the appearance of strength. The Iraqi force we would soon encounter was about five times Eagle Troop’s size. The brigade commander, Maj. Mohammed, centered his defense on an abandoned village that lay astride an east-west-running road. Mohammed, who had attended the Infantry Officer Advanced Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, when the United States was providing some support to Iraq in its war against Iran, thought it was the ideal ground from which to defend.

His defense was fundamentally sound. He assumed that we would have to move along that road to avoid becoming lost in the featureless desert. He fortified the village with anti-aircraft guns to be used in the ground mode, machine guns, and infantry. He took advantage of an imperceptible rise in the terrain that ran perpendicular to the road and directly through the village to organize a “reverse slope” defense on the east side of that ridge. He anticipated that upon encountering his strong point at the village, we would bypass it either to the north or south. He built two engagement areas, or “kill sacks,” on the eastern side of the ridge to the north and the south of the village, emplaced minefields to disrupt forward movement, and dug in approximately 40 tanks and 16 BMPs about 1,000 meters from the ridge. His plan was to engage and destroy us piecemeal as we moved across the crest. Hundreds of infantry occupied bunkers and trenches between his armored vehicles. He positioned his reserve of 18 more tanks and his command post along another subtle ridgeline approximately 3,000 meters farther east.

On paper, it was a strong defense, and attacking it head-on might seem reckless, but Eagle Troop had competitive advantages that were less obvious but more important to the outcome than numbers.

7. Maximize your competitive advantages. The first contact with Maj. Mohammed’s brigade came at 4:07, when Staff Sgt. John McReynolds’s Bradley drove right on top of an Iraqi bunker that contained an observation element positioned to provide early warning to the forces in the village. Two enemy soldiers emerged and surrendered. SSG McReynolds took them prisoner and transported them to our trains. McReynolds’s wingman, Sgt. Maurice Harris, scanned into the village through the blowing sand. Evidently the Iraqis had gotten some word back to the village, and SGT Harris’s Bradley came under 23 mm and machine-gun fire. As Harris began to engage, LT Tim Gauthier moved forward and reported on the situation. I asked LT Gauthier to fire a TOW missile into the center of the village so that the explosion would orient our tanks. After my gunner, SSG Craig Koch, fired a round to mark center, all nine tanks fired high-explosive rounds into the village simultaneously. The enemy was effectively suppressed.

8. Think ahead, and do not become fixated on current action. Our scouts might have been tempted to focus on the big explosions in the village. First Platoon, however, maintained its primary observation to the east. SSG David Lawrence was the commander of First Platoon’s northernmost Bradley. When his gunner, Bradley Feltman, said, “Hey, I’ve got a hot spot out there; I’m not sure what it is,” Lawrence responded, “Put a TOW in it; see what it is.” Lawrence identified the hot spot as a T-72 tank as the ensuing explosion ripped the turret from its hull. Lawrence’s initiative away from the primary action alerted the troop to a much larger defensive position to the east. While Lawrence was launching that missile, the troop received permission to advance to the 70 Easting. At that point, I felt it was best for us to go to switch formations and lead with our nine tanks.

9. Encourage teams to take initiative and support each other. First Platoon pulled in behind the tank wedge to cover our rear. Third Platoon retained responsibility for flank security. As we began moving forward, First Platoon, responding to the contact report on its platoon radio net, started firing 25-mm high-explosive munitions across the front. It was a little unnerving for the tanks as we moved forward. I gave First Platoon a cease-fire order. The two tank platoons were separated slightly from our tank. When our tank came over the crest of the imperceptible rise north of the village, SGT Craig Koch, the gunner, and I identified the enemy simultaneously. As SGT Koch said, “Tanks direct front,” I could see eight T-72 tanks in prepared positions to our front. No one was waiting for orders. All platoons were engaged in concurrent, complementary actions. Our tank driver, SPC Christopher Hedenskog, nicknamed Skog, knew that he had to steer a path that permitted both tank platoons to get their guns into the fight. He turned 45 degrees to the right and kept our frontal armor toward the first enemy tanks we engaged. He also drove through a minefield, avoided the anti-tank mines, and told us on the intercom. He knew that it would be dangerous to stop where we would have been stationary targets. He saw that we had a window of opportunity to shock the enemy and take advantage of the first blows SGT Koch had delivered. Common understanding of how we fought together allowed individuals and crews to take initiative without waiting for instructions from above. SSG McReynolds recalled, “We did not have to be told what to do, it just kinda came natural.”

Platoons coordinated with one another. All nine tanks began engaging together as we advanced. In approximately one minute, everything in the range of our guns was in flames. But the burning tanks and personnel carriers of the enemy’s first defensive line formed a curtain of smoke that concealed the enemy farther to the east. As our tanks assaulted through the smoke, we saw other enemy armored vehicles and large numbers of infantry running to get back to subsequent trench lines and positions. We destroyed the enemy armored vehicles quickly and shot the infantry with machine guns as we closed the distance with them. Pockets of enemy soldiers threw their arms up. Our soldiers were disciplined; turrets turned away from any enemy soldier with his hands raised. Tank platoon leaders asked scout platoons to pick up observation of the enemy infantry as their Bradleys came through the smoke. The scouts saw that the enemy had used false surrender to gain a better position. Enemy soldiers were re-shouldering their rifles and RPGs. Our Bradleys surprised the enemy, however, and destroyed them before they could engage our tanks effectively. In an agile organization, teams anticipate one another’s actions and the majority of information flow is horizontal rather than vertical.

The troop understood that it was important to maintain the initiative after we delivered the first blows. Just as our tanks cleared the western defensive positions, we were told we had reached the limit of our advance. “Tell them we can’t stop,” I responded. “Tell them we’re in contact and we have to continue this attack. Tell them I’m sorry.” We had surprised and shocked the enemy; stopping would have allowed them to recover. We continued to attack toward another very subtle ridgeline on which the enemy positioned his reserve, a coil of 18 T-72 tanks. Our tanks destroyed the first of the reserve from long range. We could not see the others, however, until we crested the rise and entered their assembly area. The enemy reserve was attempting to counterattack, but we destroyed them at close range. There was an observation post and an elaborate bunker for the brigade commander, Maj. Mohammed.

10. Build confidence and trust. Confidence serves as a bulwark against fear. Fear in combat can lead to inaction, bad decisions, and opportunities for the enemy. My loader, PFC Jeffrey Taylor, told me the next day, “I’m not going to lie. I was fixing to panic, but I told myself, ‘Don’t panic, just do your job.'” SPC Rodrigo Martinez, a tank gunner, wrote after the battle that he never really experienced fear, because “we had trained so hard and often that it just seemed like another field problem.” Third Platoon leader LT Gauthier observed that his platoon’s actions were “almost businesslike.”

Confidence allowed some to improvise under harrowing conditions. For example, in the first minutes of the battle, LT Jeff DeStefano’s tank crew came around the village, destroyed an enemy tank, and acquired a second tank that was traversing its turret toward them. A round got stuck in the chamber. The loader grabbed hold of the loader’s hatch, swung his legs forward, and kicked the round in; the breech came up, and the gunner fired a round that destroyed a T-72 tank at very close range.

But perhaps most importantly, Eagle Troop took on the qualities of a family in which all were bound together by a sense of honor, trust, and commitment to one another.

Business is not battle, but success on the battlefield and in the marketplace requires confident teams that are able to achieve speed of action and seize the initiative over competitors. Leaders should be careful not to confuse initiative with impulsiveness. There are many cautionary stories in military history, such as Darius’s attack against Alexander the Great at the Battle of Issus in 333 B.C. or Hannibal’s destruction of attacking Roman forces at Cannae in 216 B.C. or the British charge of the light brigade during the Crimean War in 1854. But leaders who build cohesive teams, foster a culture of trust, underwrite risk, and encourage initiative will be less likely to see opportunities pass because people were waiting for orders.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (U.S. Army, retired) is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World and Dereliction of Duty. He served as an officer in the U.S. Army for 34 years.