Not much to tell. 8th ID was leading the V Corps counterattack with all 6 Armor Battalion Task Forces doing a passage of lines through 2nd Armored Division. It was the middle of the night when 5-77 Armor came up a TCP that I happened to be checking on forward of the FLOT, and when my NCO attempted to direct them to the correct road, the Battalion Commander started yelling at him that he knew where he was going. I tried to explain to him that he was about to head off in the wrong direction when he stated. "Lieutenant, do you how much damage this M1 would sustain if I ran you over ?? Absolutely none."
"Roger that, Sir." And we moved out of his way.
After we got all the other battalions passed through 2nd Armored Division, I had to go back and debrief the 8th ID commander, MG Calvin Waller
* (who later became LTG Waller and Schwarzkopf's Deputy during
Desert Storm#) as to the passage of lines and the status of the counter-attack.
He was ready to rip my head off and *expletive deleted*it down my neck because TF 5-77 was not in position and not attacking, and it was obviously the enlisted MPs manning the TCPs fault. Until I explained, that I was there and what the Commander said to me. He then leaned over to one of his aides and *almost* quietly said. "Bring me the scalp of the commander of 5-77."
At that point, my debrief was done, I quickly left the Division TOC and the area...
# I would have follow MG Waller through the gates of hell in gasoline soaked underoos. He was very much like GEN Mattis, before there was a GEN Mattis.
* -Simply because Waller was one of the few people able to handle Schwarzkopf and his temper. They were good friends from when Schwarzkopf was BG and ADC for 8th ID and Waller a COL, and commanding 1st Brigade, 8th ID.
From PBS Frontline. An
Oral History of the 1991 Gulf War:
Q: When you arrived in the headquarters, General Schwarzkopf, it's no secret, had an explosive temper. What was morale like in that regard?
Waller: Well first of all the staff officers were very, very timid .. now you have to bear in mind that General Schwarzkopf was by himself, he had no deputy at that time - he had a chief of staff and other staff officers but he didn't have another senior officer to relieve him of a lot of the responsibility, so he was doing all of the political things that he had to do and he was doing all of the tactical things, so it was incumbent upon me to walk in and try to relieve him of some of those tactical things that needed to be done and leave him to the political entities, but I will tell you that the staff officers appeared to be timid, a little bit like walking around on eggshells, they were very reluctant to give bad news to General Schwarzkopf, for fear that they would cause some minor eruption, and therein was a problem, to make sure that staff officers did not fear saying what needed to be said so that we could get to the bottom of all those issues.
Q: So you found yourself becoming an intermediary between General Schwarzkopf and officers with bad news.....?
Waller: Well, you know, a lot of people have said that the reason why General Cal Waller was sent to Saudi Arabia was to keep General Schwarzkopf at peace with the staff and with the commanders. You know, if that is the truth, no-one ever instructed me that that's the reason why I was being sent to Saudi Arabia or to Riyadh, I was told by General Powell, as well as by the Army Chief of Staff that I was going to Saudi Arabia because of my experience as a ground combat commander and that I was going there to assist General Schwarzkopf with the combat operation since the President had recently made a decision to increase the number of forces there by over 100,000 when it was decided that VII Corps coming out of Germany would be moved from Europe, NATO countries, into Saudi Arabia, so I went there for ground combat and for combat operations more than I did for trying to keep General Schwarzkopf on an even keel. Now it just so happened that that was my fourth time working for General Schwarzkopf and we were friends and had known each other for years and I certainly understood what was required in working with Norman Schwarzkopf.
