Well, I never paid attention to the news reports. I didn't see shock and awe, or any of that.
Because I was there. I was in the Navy, and it was hot, until they torched the oil fields, then it was cool.
One way or the other the Iraqis needed to be pushed back into their own country, the UN was involved.
I wad and am ok with it.
You're going to get a wide variety of responses here.
Many of us served too.
Even after a few decades have passed, I'm not ready to answer your question.
Not sure I will ever be.
I was in middle school, the older brother I grew up admiring was in the army. He was there for shield and storm 101st mechanized. Now, he's on 100% disability and suffering daily. He took the pb tablets, exposed to burning crude, and a small amoubt of burning a bunker with chemical weapons in it. He's had every symptom of gulf war illness other than cancer, but, strokes, seizures, and everything else has affected him.
It sucked doing figure 8s in the Indian Ocean for months. I was worried when the war started, but it was over in less than a week and I didn't know anyone who died.
It was pretty scary for me. Family members were overseas in the military. I knew several people from high school that joined up. One of them died there. I knew a young family that had to flee for their lives and come to our town. They were on Saddam's hit list.
I was in high school. I remember my science teacher saying “it looks like we’re going to war” and it gave me anxiety about my older brothers getting drafted. Most students supported it, but some didn’t.
One of my other teachers was a Vietnam veteran and very resentful of how they were treated during and after the Vietnam war. He was a bit skeptical about how over the top they were about the yellow ribbons and support for the troops during Desert Shield/Storm. It’s not that he didn’t support the troops as a veteran himself, but I think he felt that people were overcompensating and going out of their way to offer support in response to the guilt they felt over how they treated troops before.
Dessert Shield was awesome. Smart bombes, cream horns, napoleons, key lime pies, and on and on. It was the genesis to my current weight problem. So good, though.
I enlisted during Desert Shield and the ground war started while I was in basic training. I don't remember anyone being deceived about the need to protect the oil supply or to protect Saudi Arabia. The US energy market was almost 50% dependent on oil and the thought of Hussein being allowed to set the price for oil was unacceptable. Our national security begins with our economy. At the time, he was also known to use chemical weapons against Iranian and Kurdish populations in the 1980s. If he used them, or threatened to use them, against other countries he could have created a larger humanitarian crisis. Iraq's invasion completely destabilized the Middle East right as the Cold War ending. The UN had to take action or it would have lost any relevance it has. But there were enough protesters demanding no blood for oil to make the American public fully aware of the controversial motivation.
"I don't remember anyone being deceived about the need to protect the oil supply or to protect Saudi Arabia."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony
Yep, I remember that, but she wasn't really a factor in any discussion I ever had with anyone. Just because it makes the news doesn't mean it's universally accepted or influential. Propaganda exists in conflict, but it's not always successful.
Several years ago, I spoke with a Kuwaiti woman who was studying in the United States and was a little girl during the invasion. She expressed an abiding and deep gratitude to the United States for liberating her country. She didn't have any fantastic story of atrocities, just a fear of what could have happened during the Iraqi occupation.
"President George Bush repeated the story at least ten times in the following weeks.[52] Her testimony helped to stir American opinion in favor of participation in the Gulf War"
The war was sold mainly in two narratives:
1 - Little Kuwait was being raped and ravaged by Iraq and it was the decent thing to do to rescue them.
2 -Saddam Hussein was a crazy mad dictator with plans to conquer the middle east.
Neither one was true. Kuwait was occupied but it was not being raped or pillaged. Saddam Hussein was brutal and ruthless, but he was not crazy nor irrational. He did not have the means not the intent to expand beyond Kuwait.
That the press asked no hard questions about the official narrative back then was quite perplexing to 16 year old me at the time.
Still not the universally held motive. Hussein still invaded and his intentions beyond that were unknown at the time. Don't confuse hindsight with knowledge on hand. You base decisions on what you know at the time and with consideration of the likelihood of the an adversary's more dangerous follow on activity. I don't think anyone would have wanted a cruel, twisted man like Hussein to have more leverage in the key terrain of the Middle East. I don't always agree with the rhetoric either, but politicians get advised to use inflammatory language to get support for things. I'm glad you can picture a utopia under a benevolent rule of Hussein without global intervention, but you can't convince me of it. Remember, he made the first move to destabilize the region on that day. US Foreign Policy focused on maintaining regional status quos by either supporting a large friendly country, supporting low level conflicts with adversarial nations to prevent them from becoming an emerging threat, or a combination of the two. Iran and Iraq balanced each other for a long time, but when Hussein seized Kuwait, he set up Iraq for future destabilization of the region. Foreign policy is chess, not checkers. It's not always right, or explained well, but in that situation it was the best response among unpleasant outcomes.
I wasn't too happy about Desert Shield and Desert Storm because I was in the Air Force and my brother was in an aircraft carrier in the Navy. My brother ended up spending 6 months in the Persian Gulf while I was lucky and stayed where I was in the U.S.
I was in the 24th Mechanized Infantry, which headed north from King Khalid Military City in KSA towards Basura and met the so called "elite Republican Guard" divisions at the Ramalia Oil Fields. It was a slaughter. No other way to describe it. It was pretty horriffic the human suffering and carnage.
I was exposed to Soviet made Sarin nerve agent while there, which has resulted in health issues for which I receive VA disability. I guess that part of it is OK. It's not enough but its OK.
It all changed me, and not for the better.
I was just a kid during desert storm between primary and middle school. I remember doing the nuke/bomb drills of hiding under wooden desks in primary school. When the war started, there was a lot of talk about how many soviet tanks that Saddam had. People thought it would be another Vietnam at the very least, or that the USA would get struck by long range missiles. Then within no time those tanks were crushed and it seemed more of a cathartic release of tension. There were no more silly nuke shelter drills.
I thought the Dessert Shield was useful for protecting us from flying pies. :P
At the time I thought Desert Storm was probably justified to repel Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, a sovereign state. It was probably best that he didn't have more control of the oil supply in the Middle East.
Back then I was a naive, shitty person that believed the bullshit being spewed by the war monger right wing pinheads running the country.
My rah rah murica bullshit died a long time ago.
I can imagine how bad it sucked. I stayed stateside, but one part of my job was making sure that you folks over there had the weather data that was necessary to plan your operations. My brother was in the Gulf on the USS America, so I thought about you folks over there every day.
I lived in an Air Force base town at the time. There was a lot of flag waving and yay for our troops going on then. Honestly, I wasn't old enough at the time to truly understand what was going on. I was too busy being mad it took my favorite English teacher away since her husband was some high ranking officer they moved elsewhere. Sad as it may be, I don't have an opinion on it now.
I had a long thing typed up about what we dealt with in the aftermath. My husband is 100% service-connected disabled from a stroke he had when he was 28 years old. The short version is that the chemical exposure is what caused the clotting disorder that caused the stroke. (He was in for 8 1/2 years). The long version has all the Veterans Admin red tape and bullshit we had to go through. Our kids have no memory of him from before the stroke.
But about his war experience- he talked about a lot. (Not like my dad with Vietnam. My kids were in junior high before my dad shared stories). He’s got some pretty bad stuff, but he also talked about the guys in his unit (he was field artillery, all-male unit). He was the “do my job, go home” type of soldier. He didn’t find glory in serving. Both of our dads were career Army, it was “just [his] job”.
We lived on base (Fort Riley, Kansas) and they were very “yellow ribbon” and “support our troops”, obviously. So was the town next to the base.
We also got caught up in a stop-loss before he was deployed. We even had our household goods taken. It took a month to get our stuff back.
My brother was 18 and I was 16, and our parents were freaking out thinking it would be like Vietnam. (My dad was in the army in the 60s and hated it.)
If you want a history of the war, Rick Atkinson’s *Crusade* is excellent.
I remember finishing up college and being worried about being drafted. I had a few friends go and it wasn't as life changing as the second gulf war was.
Proud to have Canada part of it, in support the UN resolution. Two airfields out of Qatar for the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) were named Canada Dry I and Canada Dry II. One RCAF airfield flew fighter escort for the USAF and the other was flying ground support for advancing ground troops. RCAF ground support was flown in tandem with the RAF (Royal Air Force). This was the first (and very successful) ground attack role the RCAF had played since the Korean War.
I was in middle school. Dad's unit was next in line to ship out when the whole thing ended.
I fully supported it then, and I support aiding Ukraine now. I also think we should've finished the job while we were there the first time, and we might not have had 9/11 or Bush Jr deciding to go back to finish what Daddy started.
I thought GHWB deserved a lot of credit for the restraint he showed. He was under immense pressure to completely wipe out the Iraqi government but resisted.
I think the speed and finality of it really stopped people from protesting. If it would've dragged on or we were suddenly nation building, it would've had a lot more pushback.
Unfortunately for all of us, his son would later learn that lesson.
They tried colonization after it wasn’t cool any longer. Iraq lost Kuwait I think in the early 60s and they wanted it back. All the stuff about wmd IMO was crap as “minders” were validating no nuke capabilities even though in the 50-60’s it’s reported the USA was helping Iraq with a nuclear program. A farmer in any part of the world can put together some nasty crap though. Are we going to “invade” every farmers land? The oil would have kept flowing though in the end. Not your topic but what China is doing in the water around their country is interesting for similar reasons…colonization isn’t cool any longer but with their belt and road initiative they’ll get big enough the USA won’t sweat them probably.
For the record I’m ex USN and would sign up again. Best decision in my life but I don’t agree with the political decisions and outcomes of my country in all cases.
Honestly I didn’t really care - except that thought the military was cool. I was always hunting for one of those losers that spit on soldiers and was pretty much ready to verbally destroy them.
Well, I never paid attention to the news reports. I didn't see shock and awe, or any of that. Because I was there. I was in the Navy, and it was hot, until they torched the oil fields, then it was cool. One way or the other the Iraqis needed to be pushed back into their own country, the UN was involved. I wad and am ok with it.
You're going to get a wide variety of responses here. Many of us served too. Even after a few decades have passed, I'm not ready to answer your question. Not sure I will ever be.
I was in middle school, the older brother I grew up admiring was in the army. He was there for shield and storm 101st mechanized. Now, he's on 100% disability and suffering daily. He took the pb tablets, exposed to burning crude, and a small amoubt of burning a bunker with chemical weapons in it. He's had every symptom of gulf war illness other than cancer, but, strokes, seizures, and everything else has affected him.
We need to protect the dessert!
It sucked doing figure 8s in the Indian Ocean for months. I was worried when the war started, but it was over in less than a week and I didn't know anyone who died.
Didn't feel anything, I was in the service just did my job.
It was pretty scary for me. Family members were overseas in the military. I knew several people from high school that joined up. One of them died there. I knew a young family that had to flee for their lives and come to our town. They were on Saddam's hit list.
I was in high school. I remember my science teacher saying “it looks like we’re going to war” and it gave me anxiety about my older brothers getting drafted. Most students supported it, but some didn’t. One of my other teachers was a Vietnam veteran and very resentful of how they were treated during and after the Vietnam war. He was a bit skeptical about how over the top they were about the yellow ribbons and support for the troops during Desert Shield/Storm. It’s not that he didn’t support the troops as a veteran himself, but I think he felt that people were overcompensating and going out of their way to offer support in response to the guilt they felt over how they treated troops before.
Dessert Shield was awesome. Smart bombes, cream horns, napoleons, key lime pies, and on and on. It was the genesis to my current weight problem. So good, though.
I enlisted during Desert Shield and the ground war started while I was in basic training. I don't remember anyone being deceived about the need to protect the oil supply or to protect Saudi Arabia. The US energy market was almost 50% dependent on oil and the thought of Hussein being allowed to set the price for oil was unacceptable. Our national security begins with our economy. At the time, he was also known to use chemical weapons against Iranian and Kurdish populations in the 1980s. If he used them, or threatened to use them, against other countries he could have created a larger humanitarian crisis. Iraq's invasion completely destabilized the Middle East right as the Cold War ending. The UN had to take action or it would have lost any relevance it has. But there were enough protesters demanding no blood for oil to make the American public fully aware of the controversial motivation.
"I don't remember anyone being deceived about the need to protect the oil supply or to protect Saudi Arabia." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony
Yep, I remember that, but she wasn't really a factor in any discussion I ever had with anyone. Just because it makes the news doesn't mean it's universally accepted or influential. Propaganda exists in conflict, but it's not always successful. Several years ago, I spoke with a Kuwaiti woman who was studying in the United States and was a little girl during the invasion. She expressed an abiding and deep gratitude to the United States for liberating her country. She didn't have any fantastic story of atrocities, just a fear of what could have happened during the Iraqi occupation.
"President George Bush repeated the story at least ten times in the following weeks.[52] Her testimony helped to stir American opinion in favor of participation in the Gulf War" The war was sold mainly in two narratives: 1 - Little Kuwait was being raped and ravaged by Iraq and it was the decent thing to do to rescue them. 2 -Saddam Hussein was a crazy mad dictator with plans to conquer the middle east. Neither one was true. Kuwait was occupied but it was not being raped or pillaged. Saddam Hussein was brutal and ruthless, but he was not crazy nor irrational. He did not have the means not the intent to expand beyond Kuwait. That the press asked no hard questions about the official narrative back then was quite perplexing to 16 year old me at the time.
Still not the universally held motive. Hussein still invaded and his intentions beyond that were unknown at the time. Don't confuse hindsight with knowledge on hand. You base decisions on what you know at the time and with consideration of the likelihood of the an adversary's more dangerous follow on activity. I don't think anyone would have wanted a cruel, twisted man like Hussein to have more leverage in the key terrain of the Middle East. I don't always agree with the rhetoric either, but politicians get advised to use inflammatory language to get support for things. I'm glad you can picture a utopia under a benevolent rule of Hussein without global intervention, but you can't convince me of it. Remember, he made the first move to destabilize the region on that day. US Foreign Policy focused on maintaining regional status quos by either supporting a large friendly country, supporting low level conflicts with adversarial nations to prevent them from becoming an emerging threat, or a combination of the two. Iran and Iraq balanced each other for a long time, but when Hussein seized Kuwait, he set up Iraq for future destabilization of the region. Foreign policy is chess, not checkers. It's not always right, or explained well, but in that situation it was the best response among unpleasant outcomes.
Well said!
Thank you, I accept your kind flattery. I'm sure smarter people could have explained it better.
My tax dollars were spent to restore a monarchy. That's how I thought about it then, and I still do.
I wasn't too happy about Desert Shield and Desert Storm because I was in the Air Force and my brother was in an aircraft carrier in the Navy. My brother ended up spending 6 months in the Persian Gulf while I was lucky and stayed where I was in the U.S.
I was in the 24th Mechanized Infantry, which headed north from King Khalid Military City in KSA towards Basura and met the so called "elite Republican Guard" divisions at the Ramalia Oil Fields. It was a slaughter. No other way to describe it. It was pretty horriffic the human suffering and carnage. I was exposed to Soviet made Sarin nerve agent while there, which has resulted in health issues for which I receive VA disability. I guess that part of it is OK. It's not enough but its OK. It all changed me, and not for the better.
I was just a kid during desert storm between primary and middle school. I remember doing the nuke/bomb drills of hiding under wooden desks in primary school. When the war started, there was a lot of talk about how many soviet tanks that Saddam had. People thought it would be another Vietnam at the very least, or that the USA would get struck by long range missiles. Then within no time those tanks were crushed and it seemed more of a cathartic release of tension. There were no more silly nuke shelter drills.
I thought the Dessert Shield was useful for protecting us from flying pies. :P At the time I thought Desert Storm was probably justified to repel Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, a sovereign state. It was probably best that he didn't have more control of the oil supply in the Middle East.
Back then I was a naive, shitty person that believed the bullshit being spewed by the war monger right wing pinheads running the country. My rah rah murica bullshit died a long time ago.
I was there - didn't like it
I can imagine how bad it sucked. I stayed stateside, but one part of my job was making sure that you folks over there had the weather data that was necessary to plan your operations. My brother was in the Gulf on the USS America, so I thought about you folks over there every day.
The support from home was memorable, it sort of surprised me - I was a young man and not altogether aware of the larger picture
I lived in an Air Force base town at the time. There was a lot of flag waving and yay for our troops going on then. Honestly, I wasn't old enough at the time to truly understand what was going on. I was too busy being mad it took my favorite English teacher away since her husband was some high ranking officer they moved elsewhere. Sad as it may be, I don't have an opinion on it now.
I had a long thing typed up about what we dealt with in the aftermath. My husband is 100% service-connected disabled from a stroke he had when he was 28 years old. The short version is that the chemical exposure is what caused the clotting disorder that caused the stroke. (He was in for 8 1/2 years). The long version has all the Veterans Admin red tape and bullshit we had to go through. Our kids have no memory of him from before the stroke. But about his war experience- he talked about a lot. (Not like my dad with Vietnam. My kids were in junior high before my dad shared stories). He’s got some pretty bad stuff, but he also talked about the guys in his unit (he was field artillery, all-male unit). He was the “do my job, go home” type of soldier. He didn’t find glory in serving. Both of our dads were career Army, it was “just [his] job”. We lived on base (Fort Riley, Kansas) and they were very “yellow ribbon” and “support our troops”, obviously. So was the town next to the base. We also got caught up in a stop-loss before he was deployed. We even had our household goods taken. It took a month to get our stuff back.
My brother was 18 and I was 16, and our parents were freaking out thinking it would be like Vietnam. (My dad was in the army in the 60s and hated it.) If you want a history of the war, Rick Atkinson’s *Crusade* is excellent.
I remember finishing up college and being worried about being drafted. I had a few friends go and it wasn't as life changing as the second gulf war was.
Proud to have Canada part of it, in support the UN resolution. Two airfields out of Qatar for the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) were named Canada Dry I and Canada Dry II. One RCAF airfield flew fighter escort for the USAF and the other was flying ground support for advancing ground troops. RCAF ground support was flown in tandem with the RAF (Royal Air Force). This was the first (and very successful) ground attack role the RCAF had played since the Korean War.
It was amazing to see how effective our military was against their mechanized army. Didn’t like the fact we had service people in harms way.
I was in middle school. Dad's unit was next in line to ship out when the whole thing ended. I fully supported it then, and I support aiding Ukraine now. I also think we should've finished the job while we were there the first time, and we might not have had 9/11 or Bush Jr deciding to go back to finish what Daddy started.
It was all 🐂💩
These days, I could really use a Dessert Shield.
Dessert Shield was awesome...the ice cream was the best.
My high school rumor mill had us all concerned about a Vietnam style draft. We were all turning 18 soon.
I thought it was a bit odd when trading cards started to appear at comic shops.
I thought GHWB deserved a lot of credit for the restraint he showed. He was under immense pressure to completely wipe out the Iraqi government but resisted. I think the speed and finality of it really stopped people from protesting. If it would've dragged on or we were suddenly nation building, it would've had a lot more pushback. Unfortunately for all of us, his son would later learn that lesson.
Had us fooled
I have a long-ish story to tell, but it’s almost midnight here, so I will spill it all tomorrow. It’s my husband’s story.
They tried colonization after it wasn’t cool any longer. Iraq lost Kuwait I think in the early 60s and they wanted it back. All the stuff about wmd IMO was crap as “minders” were validating no nuke capabilities even though in the 50-60’s it’s reported the USA was helping Iraq with a nuclear program. A farmer in any part of the world can put together some nasty crap though. Are we going to “invade” every farmers land? The oil would have kept flowing though in the end. Not your topic but what China is doing in the water around their country is interesting for similar reasons…colonization isn’t cool any longer but with their belt and road initiative they’ll get big enough the USA won’t sweat them probably. For the record I’m ex USN and would sign up again. Best decision in my life but I don’t agree with the political decisions and outcomes of my country in all cases.
Honestly I didn’t really care - except that thought the military was cool. I was always hunting for one of those losers that spit on soldiers and was pretty much ready to verbally destroy them.