ISO                                  U.S. MARINES IN THE PERSIAN GULF, 19901991

    Next, General [11. Norman] Schwarzkopf [Commanding General, the Central
Command] came down.       We briefed him and he said the plan sounded good.
So we were cleared for action. As another aside, I think General Schwarzkopf
was a superlative commander--a commander's commander.           You could just tell
that he knew what he was doing.  He instilled a lot of confidence in his general
officers. I have a lot of respect for the man as an individual, a soldier, and a
commander.

Proceedings: What happened next?

Keys: I directed the 6th Marine Regiment to prepare to conduct the breach. We
would do a one-regiment breach, with each battalion, in turn, cutting two lanes
through the barrier.  We moved the 6th Marines into a sterile area and started
to construct an exact replica of the barrier line that we would have to breach.
We gathered all the intelligence we could on the area.  We sent people back to
CentCom headquarters, and we even sent the Division Engineer back to the
Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C., for anything they could find.
From photos and imagery we developed a schematic map with a scale of
1:25,000.
    The Division Engineers did a superb job of building a barrier to scale, in a
short time.    Then their  commanding   officer,    Colonel     Larry Livingston,
Commanding Officer of the 6th Marines, took his units through, battalion by
battalion.  After one week of training, he reported that he was ready to go.    I
can't say enough about the way he put it all together.
    Next, we moved everybody some 80 miles to the breach area.        Our moves
over there were mostly self-moves.  I had an extra truck company attached to
the division, and a total of 672 trucks at my disposal--and I needed every one
of them.    At times when I needed more, I could rely on our Force Service
Support Group and even contracted civilian trucks--but as we got closer to the
war, the civilian trucks got less dependable.  My point is that--especially in the
desert--you need trucks and logistical vehicles to accomplish your mission, and
the only vehicles you can count on in every situation are the ones that actually
belong to you.

Proceedings: Once you got near the breach site, how did you organize your
forces for the attack?

Keys: I put the division in a laydown site, in the order they would go into the
assault.  The 6th Marines were right in front of the area to be breached.   The
second unit through would be the Tiger Brigade, followed by the 8th Marines.
I sent the Army tank brigade second--to lead the exploitation forces--because
they were totally equipped with night-vision devices. The Marines were limited
in this regard, but every soldier had what he needed and every Army vehicle
had what it needed, and it was the best gear on the market.     They truly had an
exceptional night-fighting capability, and it made a difference. My thinking was
that if the initial penetration by the 6th Marines went slowly, and dragged into