Storm on the Horizon: Khafji--The Battle that Changed the Course of the Gulf War

I am very leery of books with titles like "the battle that changed the course blah blah blah" because so often it adds up to melodrama hyperbole for the book cover. But this time it's legit, and this battle does seem to have changed the perception of Desert Storm conflict, at the time it was being fought...even if it's mostly forgotten today.As an Army veteran of Desert Storm, I was already far north in Saudi Arabia when Khafji happened. I recall being dumbfounded that Iraq could occupy any part of Saudi Arabia for any amount of time at all. I had assumed the LAV that was destroyed by the A-10 was actually shot by Iraq (although we found out quickly it was friendly fire).What surprised me most was how it confirmed some memories I had long forgotten. Looking back at Desert Storm now, I knew (as I was convinced in 2003) that Iraq would never use chemical weapons. I was also convinced it would be an easy victory. But, seeing some sections that Morris describes about the commander's worry and near-panic over casualties made me go look at some letters home I had written, and turns out I wrote all sorts of melodrama about how I expected half my small unit to get killed based on what I knew about our mission at the time. So while the ground war turned into a total rout within minutes of the start, I guess I didn't know that at the time (although my letters did predict the big joke of chemical weapons).More importantly than my old memories, however, is how valuable this book is in comparison to 2010 military action. The Marines that Morris describes are really NEW warriors. Other than Panama and Grenada, the military of 1991 had seen no legitimate, lengthy action. This book is an outstanding look at a military we've basically forgotten, but that led the way to the military of post-9/11.Morris has written a couple good essays (I think one is titled "Notes from the Jarhead Underground"), but his voice and style in this book is far superior. In his essays, which come out of his embedded trips to Iraq, he tries much too hard to copy Michael Herr's voice in "Dispatches." It's not necessary, and while he's had good success with those essays, I think he'd be better served by being a little more of the Morris that's represented in this book.The research and interviews are excellent, considering the length of time that's passed. Desert Storm was such a weird little war; at the time it meant everything, but a month after it was over it seemed like a somewhat-uncomforable weekend camping trip.For veterans of Desert Storm, this is a good reminder that while the "war" turned into a big joke for most of us, there were some number of soldiers and Marines (exclusively in Khafji) who were fighting it out just as feircely then, as soldiers and Marines would do from 2002-??.I've been embedded in Iraq as a photojournalist several times since, and while I try to get decent information and good stories about soldiers serving overseas, I'm very envious of Morris' journalistic ability to get this story down on paper in such a compelling, and informative way.On that note, the Marines have complaints about how this battle has been ignored, and their contribution overlooked. Fair points.And yet, in two accounts, Morris describes the Marines - at gunpoint - chasing away Bob Simon, and later tricking a bunch of reporters into getting swept up by the Saudis. And they laugh, and they think it's funny...Well, if any of those reporters had been allowed access, in a war with nothing else to cover and nothing else to talk about, they would have reported Khafji like it was Gettysburg II. So that was their chance at the history books, and then it went the other way.

This is a breakout book for a Marine officer with an amazing ability to write - This is a story about a battle virtually no one ever heard about, yet author Dave Morris does an excellent job capturing the terror of fighting an overwhelming armored force. And as seems to happen all too often, there were more Marine casualties from our Air Force A-10 pilots ( who have an ability to kill Marines with a heartbreaking regularity - see "Charlie Battery; A Marine Artillery Battery in Iraq" aboutyet another Air Force FUBAR at An-Nasiriyah ).Interesting to note the army's ability to have their convoys get lost in Iraq, and their women soldiers captured ( see Jessica Lynch ! )The author has written one of the better books about the Marines in Desert Storm - he puts you up in the front lines, and makes you care about the Marines as they fight. Well done !!

This book is written well and a good read. I especially appreciate the clarity in the descriptions of what battle confusion looks and feels like. I reject the idea that one cannot understand without experiencing it. One can't experience it personally from a book, but a good writer can indeed enable you to understand. Read it twice, as I have many other books about this engagement.

Raw but not crass. Unglorifying. Seemed balanced and without agenda. Interesting history and insight into how friendly-fire incidents can happen.

I think this is great book but only the hard cover like this one because my friends and I are on the cover, that was a great pic the day after the battle

As a veteran of the fight for OP 4 on Jan 29 1991, I can honestly say that this book got it right. I literally trembled as I read it. It put me right back to that cold night. I highly recommend this book.

There are any number of books on the US Marine Corps in various wars, and in peacetime. There have only been a few books, however, that focus on the first Gulf War, and most of those are broad-horizon views of things from the point of view of the Theater Commander or at least a corps or division leader. There are relatively few tactical studies that look at the individuals who fought the battles and skirmishes of the war, and discuss what they did and felt and saw.David Morris was a Marine officer for four years in the mid-90s, and left the Corps to get a degree and become a writer. This, his first book, is a detailed account of both ends of the Battle of Khafji, dealing on the one end with the fighting in Khafji itself, and on the other hand with the Iraqi armored attack on the Light Armored Infantry units of the USMC. The author describes the latter first. The battle included a deep reconnaissance platoon, which was occupying the border post at a break in the berm the Saudis used prior to the start of the war to thwart smugglers. Behind them were deployed a company of LAV-25s, fast and lightly armored Marine pseudo-tanks which were unsuited for anything other than hit-and-run tactics when confronted with real tanks.The Deep Reconnaisance Platoon was stranded in contact with the Iraqis when the attack began, and it took them sometime to decide to retreat. While they had the transport to get out, they were also thinking they should perform their duties by reporting the attack as it occurred, and enumerate such things as number of vehicles and direction of advance. Unfortunately, their radios didn't work, and so they were unable to. The LAV company decided to move in to extract the Recon guys, but because of recon's radio troubles, they wound up not doing so. Instead, recon extracted themselves, and the LAV's fought a skirmish with the Iraqis. One LAV armed with TOW missiles shot and destroyed another, killing all four crewmen, and a second LAV full of Marines was knocked out, apparently by an Air Force A-10 overhead. The Iraqis inflicted no casualties, and the American forces retreated. Next morning, the Iraqis withdrew across the border, and the Americans reoccupied their positions.In Khafji, there were two Air Naval Gun Liason Company teams, called ANGLICOs. Each was trained to control air and naval support assets, and was consequently well-equipped with radios for communication. When everyone else evacuated the city of Khafji, they stayed, hidden in buildings, watching the Iraqi forces and calling down artillery strikes and air attacks on the unsuspecting enemy forces.These two series of events are related with intelligence and you-are-there immediacy, and they're very interesting. However, prospective readers should be aware of the author's bias. The author is a former Marine, and most of the narrative focuses on Marines also. This leads to the typical "The Marines Rule and everyone else Sucks!" attitude that is pervasive in Marine literature. The army is depicted as a bunch of cowardly (even the Special Forces), incompetent, over-equipped buffoons. The Air Force is obsessed with their toys, and just spread the ordinanace they carry around the battlefield indiscriminately, bombing both friend and foe. The Arabs (both Iraqi opponents and Saudi and Qatari allies) are depicted as greedy children, horrible shots who never train and try to leave all the fighting to the Americans, then take credit for anything good that happens. Only the Marine Corps has anyone who actually fights competently and doesn't run away. The main attack that liberated Kuwait (the armored thrust that followed the "Hail Mary") is dismissed as "anti-climactic."Bias like this is more useful (in my mind) when the book is immediate. The soldiers (or Marines) involved in the actual combat tell you what happened when they were fighting, what they felt and thought and saw and smelled and feared. As time passes, it becomes less and less instructive, because objective analysis becomes more realistic and reasonable. This book reads as if it were written the week after the battles, or perhaps months later. That makes it valuable, but of course we still have to wait for something that tells us both sides of the battle. It's interesting to compare it, by the way, with the Army's official history, which barely mentions the Marine participation the war, if I remember correctly.

Good book. Deliverd on time. Thank you.

I think the author hit the perfect point in time to bring light upon this battle, with the survivors still alive and young enough to have precise memories of what happened but also distanced enough to speak clearly without fear of disciplinary, or other kinds, of retribution.This precise timing is rightly exploited with an exhaustive research of books, articles, oral histories and the numerous interviews conducted by the author with the survivors. The result is a very detailed account of the battle that despite the amount of information that it presents is an easy read.One quick note on the level of detail of his research, it includes Amazon reviews that some of the survivors made on previous books written on the the subject.Another plus for this book is that it reflects poor leadership or other mistakes, as the Saudis multiple blunders or American blue on blue accidents, instead of just being another Fox News toned hagiography of American servicemen.If anything one could complain about the book being written too much from the point of view of junior officers, the author was one in the Marine Corps at a different time, but all writers have a point of view that they can never escape completely.

This is an interesting desccription of an historic event!The title is misleading;how could it change the course of the war,when it's importance was not recognized until long afterwards?What makes me sick is the time and again appearing Marine's arrogance und hubris!First:Take away their technical goodies and the Marines are pretty helpless!As shown here.(This is an opinion,that is shared by most armies in the world)Second:If the Seals and the Green Berets haul ass,they probably know a little bit more and have a sound reason to do so!To stay further on is no bravery but utmost stupid!(Quote Navy Seals:"We do not make frontal assaults on maschinegun-bunkers;that's what the Marines are for!)Yes they were mostly extreme brave,but certainly they were not that terribly efficient!A reasonably good book,but not one you could'nt live without

L'intérêt de David J. Morris pour la bataille de Khafji remonte à sa période en tant qu'élève officier à Quantico en 1992. Il se trouve qu'un des sergents instructeurs d'une section présente à ce moment-là était un vétéran de Khafji. Pour Morris, cette bataille rangée, la première pour l'armée américaine depuis la fin de la guerre du Viêtnam, préfigurerait les engagements en Afghanistan, par exemple, où de petites équipes américaines très mobiles guident et encadrent des forces alliées contre un adversaire du tiers-monde -tout en subissant aussi, parfois, les aléas de la puissance de feu de leur propre camp... Morris souligne que rien n'était joué d'avance contre l'Irak en 1990-1991. La prise de Khafji par les Irakiens, le 29 janvier 1991, donne l'occasion à certains Américains de venger l'affront du Viêtnam, selon lui. L'auteur base son récit, essentiellement, sur l'interview de plus d'une centaine de vétérans américains qui ont participé à la bataille de Khafji.Le mouvement des Irakiens sur Khafji prend par surprise deux sections de reconnaissance profonde des Marines et un groupe de Special Forces stationnés sur la frontière saoudienne avec l'Irak, comme "sonnettes", pour collecter du renseignement et protéger un énorme dépôt de carburant des Marines situé non loin des premières lignes. Par conséquent, la plupart de ces petits groupes situés bien en avant du reste des forces est contraint de se replier dans la ville de Khafji devant l'assaut des blindés irakiens. Avec leurs moyens de communication, les Marines vont guider des frappes aériennes sur les chars et les véhicules blindés irakiens tout en restant dissimulés dans des bâtiments, à la merci d'être découverts et éliminés par les assaillants.L'assaut de Saddam Hussein comprend en fait trois secteurs d'attaque. Khafji est le point faible parce que la ville est défendue par la Garde Nationale saoudienne et des unités du Qatar. Les forces de reconnaissance des Marines ne peuvent compter que sur des mitrailleuses lourdes et des missiles antichars, et le soutien de LAV. Ils sont hors de portée de leur artillerie et doivent s'appuyer sur leurs alliés arabes pour espérer repousser les Irakiens. Les Marines guident les frappes via une équipe ANGLICO (Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Company) qui suit les unités arabes qui montent en ligne sur Khafji. Cette équipe comprend à la fois des pilotes et des artilleurs.Pour Morris, la bataille a tout simplement été oubliée parce qu'elle n'a pas impliqué au moins une grande unité américaine, mais seulement des Saoudiens, des Qataris et une poignée d'Américains. Pourtant, la bataille de Khafji montre à l'évidence les forces mais aussi les grandes faiblesses de l'armée irakienne, en dépit de huit années de guerre contre l'Iran : de quoi dégonfler la baudruche créée depuis le mois d'août 1990 où la contre-attaque est présentée comme devant finir dans un bain de sang face à la quatrième armée du monde (!). Le plan irakien était audacieux, mais les généraux irakiens n'ont pas réussi à complètement le mener à bien. L'USAF tue, selon les statistiques, 2 000 Irakiens pendant les frappes ; 75 véhicules irakiens et 48 soldats sont tués à Khafji et 400 faits prisonniers. Côté américain, les Marines sont surtout victimes de tirs "Blue on Blue" : un LAV-TOW détruit un de ses homologues notamment parce que les TOW n'ont qu'une vision thermique, et que la silhouette de chaleur des véhicules est parfois difficile à distinguer, notamment de nuit en plein milieu d'une bataille. L'aviation américaine, de même, n'est pas exempte de "friendly fire" pendant les combats.Morris passe beaucoup de temps sur cette partie de la bataille, l'attaque ouest des Irakiens contre le groupe de reconnaissance des Marines stationné sur une digue de sable, appuyé par une compagnie de LAV-25, et qui protège une route menant au coeur de l'Arabie Saoudite ; un peu moins sur l'attaque à l'est contre la ville de Khafji elle-même, où deux équipes ANGLICO des Marines se retrouvent prises au pigèe. L'originalité du livre est qu'il se place du point de vue du combattant, ce qui tranche dans une littérature qui s'intéresse souvent, à propos de la guerre du Golfe, aux décisions stratégiques, etc. Mais le livre est aussi écrit par un ancien officier des Marines et cela se ressent, à plusieurs titres. D'abord, comme souvent dans ces récits américanocentrés, les Irakiens et les alliés arabes de la coalition pilotée par les Etats-Unis sont certes braves, mais mal entraînés et donc ridicules ou inutiles sur le plan militaire. Ensuite, l'US Army n'est pas non plus présentée sous les meilleurs auspices : les Special Forces abandonnent soi-disant les Marines à leur sort, l'USAF ne fait que bombarder tout ce qui est en-dessous d'elle... mais elle aurait suffisamment affaibli les Irakiens pour que la grande offensive terrestre ne soit finalement qu'une "promenade de santé" pour l'US Army. Si l'on ajoute à cela l'utilisation par l'auteur d'un vocabulaire pas forcément expliqué dans le lexique pourtant présent, on comprendra que l'intérêt du livre en soit singulièrement diminué.