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Subject = OPNS DESERT SHIELD STORM DIARY   807TH MASH                     

Parent Organization = ARCENT      

Unit = VII CORPS   

Folder Title = SUBORDINATE COMMAND HISTORICAL REPORTS-2D COSCOM-332D MED-341ST MED-912TH MED                   

Document Number =          3

Box ID = BX000308







       "no" to nearly any request, we are treated like visiting
       royalty. Movies are shown constantly, and food  is always
       being put in front of us. We try to sleep as we cross the
       Mediterranean to Egypt, and across the Red Sea and vast wastes
       of the Saudi deserts. Finally we are there, on the ground in
       Saudi Arabia.


       14 January 1991


             From King Fahd Airport ("The Largest Airport in Saudi
       Arabia" ... a boast made by nearly every airport in Saudi Arabia)
       we make a two hour bus trip to the King Abdul-AZiz port in the
       city of Dammam. Regrettably, this bus trip came after 6 hours on
       the tarmac through wind and, strangely, rain. It was the last
       thing we expected to experience in the desert, and it turned out
       to be the first weather we ran into. Living conditions co-me as a
       total shock. The "royal" treatment had come to a screeching
       halt, and reality is setting in very quickly! Thousands of troops
       were sleeping on their cots in a dirty quay-side warehouse, and we
       increase their number by some 250.
            The food was substantial if not exactly what we were used to,
       and we experience the first phenomenon which would come to
       dominate our lives in this theatre: the long line. There are long
       lines everywhere and for everything. Want to eat? Stand in line.
       Want to use the latrine? Stand in line. Want to make a phone

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