| Submit your comments on this article |
| Axis of Evil |
| Marines in Desert Marshal the Tools of War |
| 2003-01-29 |
| At a vast desert supply depot with columns of armored vehicles stretching across the horizon, newly arrived troops from the 1st Marine Division today began drawing the gear they would use if ordered to invade Iraq. For the past week, about 500 Marine logistics specialists have worked around the clock, unloading, repairing and assembling enough equipment to supply a division of 17,000 for a month-long operation. This phase of the U.S. military buildup in Kuwait, although unglamorous, is among the most important should the troops be sent to war, Marines here said. "We have a saying that amateurs talk tactics and professionals talk logistics," said Maj. David Nathanson, 33, of Newark, a logistics officer for the 7th Marine Regiment who is supervising the equipment assembly line. "The work often falls outside the spotlight, but behind the scenes is a huge effort that can make all the difference. Without all the right parts, a tank is just 70 tons of steel." Hundreds of Marines, many of whom arrived in Kuwait just three days ago, spent the day testing their gear and taking inventory to make sure everything they will need is in place. They are joining several thousand Marines already in Kuwait from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. The Marines have staged thousands of tons of equipment in areas where it can be more quickly transported to deploying troops than if it were stored at bases in the United States. Civilian container ships loaded with such pre-positioned gear steamed into the Persian Gulf from the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean and arrived at a port near Kuwait City early last week. Marine logistics specialists met the ships and hauled away the cargo, which included: stuffed shipping containers and steel mesh "shark cages" for bundling in smaller equipment, Abrams tanks, Amtrak Amphibious Assault Vehicles, seven-ton trucks, M-198 howitzer artillery pieces and hundreds of Humvee four-wheel drive vehicles. They brought the equipment to this staging area, called the Arrival Assembly Operations Element, in the northern Kuwaiti desert. The Marines had dipped deeply enough into their stores to include green camouflage gear, better suited for use in Europe or Africa, in addition to desert tans more appropriate for the Persian Gulf region. By the time units arrived today to pick up their gear, most of the vehicles had been inspected and marked with chalk as "good to go" or, in a few cases, as needing new parts. This marks the first time the Marines have made use of pre-positioned equipment in a non-training operation since the invasion of Somalia in 1993, Nathanson said. Under a program started in the early 1980s to make them more mobile, the Marines maintain three pre-positioned squadrons, numbering four to six vessels each. One squadron is based in the Indian Ocean on the island of Diego Garcia, one in the Mediterranean and the other in the Pacific Ocean at Guam. The gear goes to Marines deploying far from their main bases on the East and West coasts of the United States and in Okinawa, Japan. Logistics specialists have unloaded equipment from one squadron and have begun work on a second. Logistics officers said that because the pre-positioned equipment is regularly upgraded but less frequently used than gear that Marines train with at home, it is generally in impeccable condition. Nathanson said that of the gear that has been offloaded over the past week, more than 96 percent was found to be in full working order. As the new troops arrived, the assembly point was among their first stops and a precursor to any major training. Today, two companies from the 1st Tank Battalion, comprising 64 Abrams tanks, carefully inspected their armored behemoths and swapped parts before driving them off to their posts in the desert. During the Gulf War, U.S. forces spent months in the desert preparing to expel Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait. But many of the Marines drawing gear today said the massive offloading of equipment was a sign that this time they might see action sooner, rather than later. "The Marines don't uncoil all their gear lightly," said Alpha tank company Staff Sgt. Alfonso Davis, 41, of Mobile, Ala. "Once we lay it all out like this, things tend to get going pretty quick. We're hoping a decision is made soon, so we know our course of action." Soon, very soon. Take care. |
| Posted by:Steve |