A Storm is coming... 20th Anniversary

[Herk]

We started deploying the 2nd Combat Comm (2 MOB) from Patrick AFB the day after Bush announced DESERT SHIELD and were very intently watching any and all news as to what was to happen.  When the STORM broke we were glad the waiting was over.

[MKopack]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMXDXOt4hJA

Turn up your speakers and hang onto your desk. Here's our deployment video made by our assigned Combat Camera guys. The inflight footage was taken from the back seat of F-16D 86-0047, the only two-seat F-16 to have flown combat missions during the war.

What does everyone else remember of that time in the winter of 1991?

Mike

[MKopack]

Twenty years ago in the Gulf we were roughly 72 hours from the United Nations Security Council's 15 January 1991 deadline for Iraq to have withdrawn its military from Kuwait.

United Nations Security Council through Resolution 678, recognizing its responsibility to uphold international peace and security, offered Iraq one final chance to implement Resolution 660 (1990) which demanded that Iraq withdraw its forces unconditionally from Kuwait to the positions in which they were located on August 1, 1990, the day before the invasion of Kuwait. If Iraq did not implement the resolution by January 15, 1991, Member States were authorized to use all necessary means to uphold and implement Resolution 660.

At this point with the limited time remaining, it is doubtful that Iraq could complete a withdrawal by the deadline - had they wanted to. Time was ticking, our aircraft were armed, and we were as practiced and ready as we were going to be - on a wartime schedule, carrying our old steel helmets, gas masks and chemical protective gear wherever we went.

Operation Desert Shield was nearing an end, and the "Mother of all Storms" was moving in...

Mike

Photos courtesy of the US Air Force