OPNS DESERT SHIELD STORM DIARY 807TH MASH

File: 970815_sep96_decls54_0029.txt
Page: 0029
Total Pages: 44

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

5 U.S.C. 552 (b)(6)

SPC is dead. We found his body in a five ton
truck this morning as we tore down are tents and prepared to move
out. A member of the self-proclaiiued "Motor Hell" bunch from the
motor pool, SPC is remembered as a competent, quiet, giving
person whom they will sorely miss. Death seems even more
pronounced to us all when experienced on this personal level.

In numbed shock, we convoy to our next site at the Ist
Armored Division Support Command area (grid coordinates
N3007/E4657). Here we are just 45 miles from Basra. The journey
there is remarkable, with burned out tanks, trucks, personnel
carriers and bunkers everywhere. The level of destruction is epic
in scope, and we see very few craters or shell marks that are not
firmly planted on their intended targets. The battle here must
have been enormous. That night, we see a glow in the eastern sky,
and suddenly realize that we are watching the country of Kuwait
burn, as the oilwell fires spew forth there black evidence of
Iraqi sabotage. Truckloads of EPW's (enemy prisoners of war) pass
us on the way to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. This is perhaps the
first war where enemy prisoners could look forward to better
treatment in an EPW camp than they could at the hands of their own
officers and leaders. Our Iraqi EPW patients were very grateful
for the care they received from us, and appeared to be quite
relieved to have left the war behind them.