Thirty-Five Years Ago – Part 5

By the second week of the air war it was non-stop
bombing from the coalition forces and regardless of
what the military had told us the SCUDS had made it
as far south as Dhahran. Fortunately the Patriot Missles
did their jobs and with one exception the SCUDS were
neutralized.
I drove north from Dhahran for a hundred
miles to get to Safaniyah and the water treatment
plant that I was to help protect. I knew
that troops would be filling the highway as it
headed north to the Kuwaiti border. I didn’t
see them. Instead all the troops were going
South. Also, there were no troops until I
reached the Tap Line highway. This highway
ran from the Arabian Gulf across Saudi Arabia
to Jordan and followed the pipeline. It was later
understood that the troops on the Kuwaiti
border were moved south and up the Tap Line road and
repositioned to out-flank the Iraqis. This was done while
the Iraqis were blinded by the intense coalition bombing
A true stroke of genius.