|
|
 Storm
on the Horizon
Storm on the Horizon is the little-known story of the key land battle of
Desert Storm: the Battle for Khafji -- and how that engagement has
become part of military history. Combining some of the most powerful
writing on war ever with a Marine's eyeview of combat, former Marine
officer David J. Morris has brilliantly recreated this crucial battle
that nearly changed the outcome of the Persian Gulf War. Storm on the
Horizon is war writing at its finest.
On January 29, 1991, Saddam Hussein launched his three best armored
divisions across the Kuwaiti border and into the Islamic Holy Land of
Saudi Arabia. Their mission: to disrupt the massive U.S.-led Coalition
preparing to evict them from Kuwait, and to bloody the Americans on CNN.
Caught without warning in the path of this juggernaut were scattered
groups of lightly armed U.S. Marines and Special Forces soldiers. Storm
on the Horizon is the gripping and compelling story of how these elite
fighting men escaped the Iraqi onslaught and reversed the assault with
an unprecedented combination of high-tech weaponry and American
know-how. This is the story of the first battle of the smart-bomb age.
Storm on the Horizon drops you in the middle of the most intense battle
of the Persian Gulf War. The Marines are trapped and outnumbered, their
weapons no match against the Iraqi tanks bearing down on them. Their
only lifeline to the rear is a barely functioning radio. Drawing upon
extensive veteran interviews and previously classified reports, David J.
Morris's vivid minute-by-minute narrative takes you through the battle
from its beginning as a scattered collection of skirmishes to its fiery
final act in the streets of the abandoned Saudi Arabian town of Khafji.
Morris captures this ordeal through the eyes of the men who were there,
giving readers a rare front-row seat to an incredible sequence of
events. Max Morton, the pilot of a Cobra attack helicopter is forced to
make an emergency landing in the heart of Khafji as the Iraqis are
attacking. He and his crew narrowly escape after locating a tank of
mystery fuel at a local oil refinery. Medic Kevin Callahan, member of a
team of Marines caught behind enemy lines, watches helplessly as a
female U.S. Army soldier and her male comrade are captured by Iraqi
soldiers and spirited to Baghdad. Ronald Tull, suffering untold wounds,
wakes up next to his burning light-armored vehicle thinking that it has
been struck by an enemy tank round. Only later does he learn the full
horror of the events that led up to the death of his seven buddies who
were on board.
 The
General's War
Drawing on interviews with senior officials and newly declassified
documents, Gordon and Trainor provide a behind-the-scenes look at the
Gulf War's generalship. The dominant figure, then-chairman of the joint
chiefs General Colin Powell, is spotlighted as a politico-military
maestro overseeing the dawn of a new era in military technology. In
their review of the short, violent, one-sided war, the authors uncover
the problems of cooperation among coalition forces and reveal details of
interservice tensions, as well as difficulties within the U.S. branches
themselves. This meticulous reconstruction of American leadership in
Desert Shield/Desert Storm presents the conflict as a laboratory for
testing new weapons and doctrine and the services' capacity for
cooperation in the field. It also serves as an object lesson in the
failure of deterrence and the problem of war termination, with a
discussion of President Bush's premature cease-fire order. Gordon is
chief New York Times Pentagon correspondent; Trainor is military
columnist for the Times. Photos not seen by PW.
|
