Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Desert Storm, I was there in '91. I'm posting about it today because it was 20 years ago today that I stepped off the plane. We were going in. A multi-national force (Made up of MOSTLY Americans) Against the worlds fourth largest army. An army of largely untried kids (us) against an army of veterans (The Iran-Iraq war ran from 1980 to 1988).
Members of the Coalition included Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America.
Germany and Japan provided financial assistance and donated military hardware, but did not send direct military assistance.
Some estimate that Iraq sustained between 20,000 and 35,000 fatalities.
The DoD reports that U.S. forces suffered 148 battle-related deaths (35 to friendly fire), A further 145 Americans died in non-combat accidents. Total Coalition deaths 379 (Not including at least 605 Kuwaiti soldiers still missing). The largest single loss of life among Coalition forces happened on 25 February 1991, when a local version of the Scud missile hit an American military barrack in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 U.S. Army Reservists from Pennsylvania.
Not a word was mentioned in either of our news papers about our 20th anniversary.
To the soldiers who did not come back, Rest well, you are Heroes, One and All.
Dan Emplit
Thank you for your service. We appreciate all that you do.
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